


Before a Fall

by ambreignstrain



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Drama, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Past Lives, Rebirth, Seven Deadly Sins, Sin and Redemption, Violence, more tags to be added later, set in the current WWE universe, they die in this a lot, will have some religious undertones but not heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:29:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambreignstrain/pseuds/ambreignstrain
Summary: The seven deadly sins exist on Earth as mortals condemned to live and die and live again until they can find the path of redemption and forgiveness.  But they're a self-destructive bunch, always and forever hamstrung by their own failings.  Will they get it right this when or will they slip back into the chaos that keeps condemning them?Or:Pride - Roman Reigns - meets Anger - Dean Ambrose - in the dark alley behind FCW building, and the cycle starts again.[Predominantly Ambreigns, but will have other pairings.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't even know how to summarize this. I started this back mid-May as a break from "Spin." It's about as different from that as it's possible to get. The Seven Deadly Sins trope is not something I came up with, but what I'm doing with it is all mine. Disclaimers: this is going to be a bit dark and I'm going to change the tags accordingly as more gets added. This is mostly canon-compliant, starting around the time all these guys were together at FCW, but I might have to bend a few rules here and there to make timelines work.

" **Before a Fall"**

" _Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."  
_ -Proverbs 16:18

 _Son of man,_  
_You cannot say, or guess, for you know only_  
_A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,_  
_And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,_  
_And the dry stone no sound of water. Only_  
_There is shadow under this red rock,_  
_(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),_  
_And I will show you something different from either_  
_Your shadow at morning striding behind you_  
_Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;_  
_I will show you fear in a handful of dust._  
-T.S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

* * *

People get it wrong.

There are no _seven deadly sins_ mentioned in the Bible.

It's something that theologians and scholars have come up with over the years, an easily digestible and easily understood list of things that God deemed abomination: Pride. Anger. Greed. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony. Lust. But nowhere are these deemed _deadly_.

The truth, as is often the case, is something far murkier and much harder to believe.

It's not a list.

There were seven of them.

Men. Creatures. Demons. It matters not _what_.

There were _seven_ , and each one carried within them one of these abominations to such an extreme degree that God decided they needed to be cast out and punished for their wicked ways.

Death, God decided, wasn't enough.

So He made them mortal, made them human, took their memories, and made them live and die again and again. Sometimes they remember parts of _before_ \- before the Fall, their past lives, His righteous anger - but they never remember everything. They never remember who or what they originally were. They're never granted the mercy of feeling whole or complete. They're never granted peace. There's always a sense of something they need. They eventually always come to know there's a path that will stop the endless cycle of life and death and all its torments, but none of them ever remember until it's too late.

It's always at the very end of things, when they're dying, that they remember.

God's got a dark sense of humor.

These seven don't always meet in every when, but when they do, they're drawn to the same places by the same unconscious magnetic pull. Sometimes they don't recognize each other, and their lives pass by quietly until they all die miserable and empty and alone. When they do remember, it's in dreams, flashes of past lives filling in some of the blank spaces, but never giving them the complete roadmap to the way out.

Sometimes only a few remember, but usually once one mind is unlocked, the rest follow.

Sometimes they don't all find each other.

Sometimes things end quietly, with no fuss or fanfare.

Other times, other _whens_ , things end in fire and fury.

* * *

_Round and around and around she goes._

_Where she stops, ain't no one knows._

_And..._

_Here..._

_We..._

Go.

* * *

**Florida, 2010**

When Pride meets Greed in this when, there's a twinge of familiarity.

Greed is a lean kid who wrestles easy as breathing, flying around the ring like he was born to be there. He blows in off the indies, and immediately sets himself to alienating everyone with his annoying brag about how he more-or-less forced the WWE to sign him.

"Ring of Honor wanted me bad," he says, his raspy-nasal voice ringing obnoxious through the locker room, "but I wanted more, you know? I want those bright lights and main events and all that money. Ring of Honor could never have given me what they could here. I was never gonna sign with them. But I made it sound like I would. I told Johnny Ace, I said, 'Either you sign me _now_ , or I'm staying with Ring of Honor for a year, and you'll lose out on a guaranteed money-maker.' Johnny had a contract for me the next day."

He smiles this bright smile that exposes a gap between his front teeth, and Pride doesn't know why that's familiar, but it _is_.

( _It's the same every time_.)

They call it ambition, the way Greed is so driven to prove himself.

Greed wants to be on the main roster _tomorrow_.

He's the only one who doesn't know he's not ready.

He's good, no doubt, but for all that he wrestles like it's something he could do in his sleep, he's not perfect. He's weak on promos, often coming across like some entitled, whiny emo douchebag instead of a serious wrestler. He dresses like a teenager, too, in tank tops and backwards-turned snapbacks and sneakers. He might outshine them all in the ring and he might show them all up in the gym, but outside of all that, he's clueless how to present himself.

It doesn't even seem to faze him that nobody on the roster can stand him.

All he seems to care about is gold around his waist and money in his pocket.

_More._

He's the kind of guy Pride wouldn't cross the street to piss on if he was on fire, but somehow Pride can't shake the lingering feeling he _knows_ this kid. Has known this kid.

But he dismisses it: more than likely he just saw an article or something online (rumor has it the kid did some work for one of those companies that produces softcore gay wrestling videos, in addition to his indy stuff) and just forgot about it.

It doesn't matter, anyway.

* * *

Pride meets Anger in the alley behind the FCW building.

Late spring, on a night that's warm and muggy.

Most everyone else had cleared out by now, but Pride had stayed because he wanted the extra ring-time. A year into his training, and he's coming along faster than his trainers hoped. He knew he would. He's always been athletic. Unlearning football to learn wrestling has come pretty naturally to him. It's just a matter of building up a different kind of muscle memory.

Of course it comes easy: it's in his blood.

Greed might wrestle like he was born to be in ring, but he's a mutt with no actual history in the industry.

While wrestling wasn't Pride's first choice for a career, it's something he can feel in his bones he has the talent for. He comes from a family of wrestling royalty.

It's in his blood.

He doesn't need to spend eight years crucifying himself in tiny gyms for twenty people to become good at it, either. He's already getting there - so much that he knows the people in charge have their eye on him.

They've got his name written into their future plans.

As it should be.

He's a star in the making.

But speaking of mutts:

Pride meets Anger in the alley behind the FCW building.

Anger's folded neatly into the dark, smoking a cigarette, mostly invisible except for the cig's furious orange tip. It glows like a tiny glaring eye each time Anger takes a drag.

Earlier that night, he'd snarled out a feral dog of a promo to announce his arrival.

Pride swore he saw William Regal walking around with a hard-on afterward.

Another guy who'd cut his teeth in the indies, Anger, but where Greed flipped and flew his way through Ring of Honor, Anger had buzzsawed through the barbed wire and glass and blood of CZW.

In the black of the alley, Pride can't see Anger's face, but he can feel the weight of piercing eyes on him. "Golden boy, huh?"

A rasp of a question, brick-rough. Pride squares his shoulders. "What of it?"

"Your finisher is garbage."

The Checkmate. A spinning bulldog. Pride scoffs. "It could snap your little spine in half, no problem."

Anger chuckles in a cloud of smoke. "I'm just saying why are you wasting your time with a move like that? You were a football player. Spear's quicker to execute, it's a move you already know, and it's more effective."

This gives Pride pause. He's been careful not to mention his nonstarter of a football career since he arrived here. The front office knows - people like Mr. McMahon and Mr. Helmsley - but he's never brought it up since then because he doesn't want people to get the impression that he failed or quit when it got tough.

He could have been a fine football player - and _would_ have been, had he stayed - but the wrestling blood that flowed through his veins refused to stay quiet. While he knew would be a _good_ football player, he knew he could be a _great_ wrestler. As a football player, he would only be as good as his team. As a wrestler, he could stand head and shoulders above everyone. That was why he chose to leave.

But he knew somehow that that the scabs and grubbers here at FCW would misinterpret that as him either not being good enough or being a quitter.

Which is why it's unsettling how certain Anger sounds. Pride wets his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You were a defensive tackle at Georgia Tech," Anger says, sly and amused. He steps out of the inky black, crushes his cigarette under his heel, and joins Pride in the weak streetlight pool. Taller than he'd looked on the monitor. Shaggy hair over his forehead. Piercing blue eyes. It's like standing next to a live wire. "All-American. That's what I'm talking about."

"How do you know that?"

Anger hums, smiles. "I wrestled your brother in Cincinnati a few years ago. HWA. He was real proud of his baby brother the football player. Imagine my surprise when I came here and found baby brother the football player was now baby brother the wrestler. Your finisher is _pretty_ \- which is fitting for you, pretty boy - but if you wanna scrap with the big dogs, you need somethin' you can blow guys apart with. Spear's better."

Out of nowhere, Pride gets the uneasy feeling he knows this guy, too. "Have we met before?"

"We know each other," Anger says.

Pride squints at Anger's face. Other than those see-right-through-you eyes, there's nothing remarkable about him. It's a face that could have been any one of hundreds at Georgia Tech. It's a face that could belong to just about anyone on the street. "Where did we meet? I'm drawing a blank."

"I didn't say we'd met," Anger replies cryptically. "I just said we know each other. We know that Rollins kid, too. You notice that?"

"How could you know somebody if you've never met them?" Pride asks, impatient. He shifts his gear bag to his other shoulder. "That doesn't make sense."

"You don't remember."

"Remember _what_?"

"I don't know." Anger's smile goes tight, sharp. "I don't fucking _know_ what I don't _remember_. I just know I don't remember. But I know we know each other. I know Rollins. You know Rollins. I saw you watchin him earlier. You looked like you were trying to remember something you forgot. I know you know him. But I don't. Fucking. _Remember_. I don't know." He spins away suddenly, laughing. It's a sound that makes the little hairs on the back of Pride's neck stand up. "I don't fucking _know_. What a fuckin' _joke_."

Disquieted, Pride pulls out his car keys. "I don't... What are you talking about, Ambrose? It's Ambrose, right?"

Anger twists around. "Huh?"

"Your name. Ambrose?"

"That's not my name," Anger says, laughing again. He reminds Pride of a glass with a jagged crack in it. "Your name isn't Roman Leakee or whatever you're calling yourself this when. Rollins isn't Rollins, either. That's wrong. It's all fuckin' wrong. I just can't remember. Fuck. Never mind. You must think I'm fuckin' cracked."

That gives Pride a nasty start. He stares. "Man-"

"Ambrose is fine," Anger says then, jerking to a stop in another weak streetlight pool and shaking out another cigarette. "Dean's good, too. You like Golden Boy or Pretty Boy better?"

"Roman," Pride says firmly. "You're gonna call me anything, it's Roman."

A lighter snaps to life, and Pride - Roman - notices it's not entirely steady when Anger - _Ambrose_ \- raises it to the tip of his smoke. Once it's lit, Ambrose makes the lighter disappear as neat as a magician vanishing a coin. He considers Roman as he takes a drag. Smoke obscures his face. "Golden Boy, then. If you remember anything, you tell me."

"I'll do that," Roman says, but he absolutely doesn't mean it. What he wants is get as far away from this guy and his weird bullbshit as humanly possible. "Don't call me Golden Boy again. Good night."

He hurries away, not wanting anyone - least of all Ambrose - to see he's rattled to his bones.

 _This when_.

* * *

Here's the thing:

Pride doesn't _know_ he's Pride.

He just knows he's a wrestler going by the name Roman Leakee, and he's destined for greatness.

 _This when_.

But that night, he dreams:

* * *

_**Ago** _

In this when, his name is Lucius Wright. It's a name that people recognize in this city full of Mathews and Marks and Pauls and Johns.

At a towering six-three, everything about him stands out, from his long, dark hair to his deeply tanned skin. He dresses himself in tailored suits and carries himself square and tall, a man who knows his worth is more than that of anyone around him. A man at home carrying power.

Mr. Mayor.

Soon to be Mr. Governor, and beyond that - someday - maybe Mr. President.

People thought young Lucius was a bad businessman when he sold his family's valuable ranch land to a man known as Shrewd Robert. Shrewd Robert had the reputation for being a thief and a crook, making phony business deals and disappearing with people's money. But Robert had been working on behalf of Union Pacific, who laid miles of brand new tracks right beside a dying hardpan town. In seven years, the town began to thrive again, with new buildings and new opportunities arising by the day.

When it came time to elect a new mayor, Lucius was the unanimous choice.

Eight years later, there's little trace of the dusty little town

She's a city now, bustling and expanding even faster than anyone but her mayor could have dreamed.

Lucius never doubted it.

Some - those poor uptight souls - call his city a den of sin and depravity.

New Sodom, they say, where murders and gambling and whoring are so common that no one even blinks when a saloon window explodes outward in a hail of gunfire. There are more opium dens than churches. There is a whorehouse where a man can lay with another man, or a woman with another woman without fear of being arrested for perversion. No real law to keep any of it contained, just self-organized citizens' militias who've taken it upon themselves to try to "repel the darkness."

They don't succeed.

Lucius watches it all from a distance, doing nothing to stop the spread of any of it.

His city is growing faster than any city in the western United States, and everywhere he goes, he's greeted with respect and admiration. Those same people who'd called him a fool years ago now line up to compliment him on his suit and his hair, to gush about how beautiful his fountain is, to try to curry his favor.

It's a heady feeling.

Won't be long before he leaves this town behind for the Governorship.

That matters far more than a few rowdy cowboys shooting each other dead in the street or a few whores getting roughed up behind a saloon. If people want to indulge in opium and alcohol, he certainly won't stop it. It keeps people in business, and if there's business, there's growth.

On a fine spring day, he ambles down a quiet Main Street, a fresh blood-red rose pinned to the lapel of the new gray suit his tailor had delivered this morning. The sun overhead is quite strong, but the brim of his hat keeps the worst of it away.

Just up ahead, near the new fountain, he spots the two Cook brothers squabbling with their neighbor, as always. Wyatt and Beau Cook aren't good for a whole lot. Wyatt's got an immense appetite for food and drink, and indulges without shame. Beau is a layabout, a man who'd just as soon spend his days in an opium haze as do an honest day's work. Their neighbors, Curtis Johnson and Tyler Dalton, aren't much better. Curtis spends most of his time out at the whorehouses, while Tyler passes his bitter days looking through windows and sighing over the finery he can't afford.

But they've been useful to Lucius in the past, mostly when he has little pests that need to be swatted down. They did well in stopping a church group from shutting down one of the whorehouses, and in stopping one of the citizens' militia groups from disrupting a delivery of opium to the dens. They're far more clever than they appear to be, and they work for things that Lucius has in plentiful supply: food and drink, opium, women, fine clothing.

He nods a greeting to them, and is pleased at the way they immediately stop bickering and straighten up to greet him with polite good mornings.

"Mornin', boys." He has no business with them today, so he passes them by, and hears them return to their quarrel behind him. Some things, he thinks, never change.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spies a shadow approaching, and he smiles: he'd recognize it anywhere.

People respect Lucius and fear him, because they know he has the power to do just about anything he wants to in the name of keeping his little garden growing.

They're downright terrified of Amos.

Lucius's unofficial deputy, his protector and most fiercely loyal friend, Amos never hesitates to pull the trigger on anyone who even looks at Lucius the wrong way. His temper is legendary, and nothing is spared his wrath when he's in one of his rages. Last time someone had tried to cross Lucius, Amos had killed that man and his brother. For good measure, he'd run the women and children off the ranch, and had burned the whole thing to the ground.

It had been a sight to behold, those flames dancing up to the skyline that night.

Lucius had let Amos ravish him beside them as a reward.

No better or greater sin had he committed in his life.

People think Amos is crazy, a demon or even the devil himself.

They're not wrong.

But today, Amos is calm enough as he falls into step beside Lucius. Most times he looks no different than the rough-and-tumble cowboys who ride in off the range, unwashed and unkempt. Today, he'd put on his best black shirt and new boots. Seemed to be some extra polish on holsters. Trimmed his beard, finally, too. Those piercing shooter's eyes warm briefly. "Mornin'."

"What's the occasion?" Lucius asks, nodding at the new threads. "Funeral?"

"Not yet," Amos says. "Give it a few hours."

"You plannin' something?"

"Not today." Amos shifts. He seems uncomfortable, like his shirt is too tight. "Somethin' in the air. Don't feel right."

"Feels good to me," Lucius says. They pass between the General Store and a pair of saloons. "Where'd you sneak off to, anyway? Awful cold in the bed this morning. Thought I was gonna get a ride."

Bending Amos over the bed is always his favorite way to wake up in the mornings.

But Amos shakes his head. "I heard Andrew Stevens was beatin' his gums about gunnin' you down again. 'I should have this town,' and 'I deserve what he's got,' and 'I should shoot him where he stands.' Drunk-talk, most like, but I thought I'd just be sure that's all it was."

"What did he say?"

"Couldn't find him." That disquiet never leaves Amos's eyes. "I just went by his house, and he ain't there. Might be out doin' an early ride, but..."

"He's not a worry," Lucius says dismissively. "Men like him are worms. You just put your boot to them and they'll go away." He takes a deep breath and stops in the middle of the street, turning a full circle to look at the city in the early morning light. "Look at all this. Can you believe it ? My city. Pretty soon my state. My country."

Amos wanders over to perch on a hitching post. "Don't want much, do ya?"

"Want has nothing to do with it," Lucius says, carefully brushing the dust off of his jacket. "It's in my blood, Amos. I can feel it. Look at me. I'm bigger than this city. Than everyone in it."

Over on the hitch, Amos lowers his tobacco pouch, gaze narrowing. "Everyone?"

"Everyone," Lucius says without hesitation. He knows full well what Amos is asking, and can't see a need to be soft about it. "Even if you were a woman, I wouldn't marry you, Amos. The woman I marry needs to be extraordinary - beautiful, refined, charming, delicate, shrewd, devoted, kind. She needs to be the sort of woman other men would sell their souls to have. She'll be the kind who'll give me sons who'll be just as strong and good. You could never do those things. You're too plain and too temperamental. You'd be my mistress. Nothing more."

"Nothing more," Amos echoes, board-flat. "Is that so."

"That," Lucius says, "is so."

"So you're plannin' on leavin me behind, in other words." Amos sounds like he's seething. "'Cuz I'm good enough for you to roll around with here, but I ain't good enough for _out there_."

"No, you'll come, too," Lucius assures him, hoping to cool off all that ire. "When my wife is indisposed with child, I'll still need you there for relief. I won't need to take a mistress. That's what I have you for."

The tobacco pouch vanishes unopened into Amos's boot. He lets himself down off the hitching post and approaches Lucius with a hand on his gun, eyes full of lightning. "I'm only good enough to be your sheep, is that it? All these years I've protected you, all these years I've _killed_ for you - you never would have gotten here if not for me - and I'm just a goddamn _sheep_ to you?!"

Not much intimidates Lucius, but he's seen this look on Amos enough times to know how dangerous it is. Won't take much to bring those guns out. There's almost no fuse on his temper. Lucius swallows. "You know that ain't true. Not just that."

"Then what, Lucius?" It's like standing next to a bonfire. "What am I?"

"You're his whore," a disgusted voice breaks in. "That's all you ever been, Amos. Mayor Sodomite's whore."

Lucius turns away from Amos to the source of the voice. There's five of them, a hundred or so feet back. The one who'd spoken - Andrew Stevens - is the smallest, a pinched-looking preacher's son dressed almost as well as Roman. He's got the same kind of cold shooter's eyes as Amos does, and his hand on the fancy revolver at his hip.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Lucius says calmly. "Fine day, isn't it?"

"It is, Mr. Mayor," Stevens says, leading his posse forward. They're all well-armed. Two have shotguns, one has a rifle, and one has a pair of handguns, all drawn. "Quite a fine day indeed."

"I don't think you need to come any closer," Lucius tells them.

He's not especially worried: even against that much firepower, Amos can hold his own. He has the fastest gun hands and better aim than anyone Lucius has ever known.

"Oh, I think we do," Stevens says with a nasty curl of a smile. "Looks like your sheep is wanderin' away. How kind of him."

Alarmed, Lucius whips around to look for Amos, and finds him halfway to one of the saloons. "Where are you goin', Amos? Get back here. These men are armed."

Amos pauses and glances at Lucius just once. There is absolutely nothing in his eyes. "'They're worms. Show 'em your boot, and they'll go away.' That's what you said. 'Sides, sheep 'n whores ain't no good in a fight. We're only good for fucking. You can handle it. So do. Show 'em your boot."

There's a part of Lucius desperate to explain that what he really needs Amos for - what he's always needed Amos for - is protection. That he trusts Amos with his life. That Amos is the _only_ person he's ever trusted with it. That Amos is more important to him than anyone.

But there's another part of him that feels certain he _can_ handle this. He doesn't need Amos or anyone else to fight for him, and he never has. Stevens is a lowly worm, a fly on a horse's ear. Hardly a bother. Even the other flies with him are a trifle. They're not worth his time.

In the end, pride wins out.

"You're right," he says, sneering. "I don't need you. But don't leave. Watch."

He turns again. Stevens' posse has fanned out in front of him in a loose semicircle, weapons aimed. For the first time in his life, Lucius knows what standing in front of a firing squad is like. He raises cautious empty hands. "I have no quarrel with you, gentlemen. Whatever you think you're doin', don't. You got a problem, put those weapons down and let's discuss it like men."

"Time for talkin' is over, Mr. Mayor," Stevens says. He's right in front of Luscious, that fancy rosewood revolver drawn and aimed square at Lucius's chest. "You've let this city drown in filth and perversion for far too long. If you won't step aside and allow men of character to clean up this place, we'll remove you by force. 'Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.'"

"That best not be a threat," Lucius says, cold and hard. "This is my city, _boy_ , and she'd eat you alive if you tried to run it for a minute. You couldn't even run your daddy's church choir. Take your posse and leave - now - and I won't have you arrested."

"I don't see any law around, Mr. Mayor," Stevens says, grinning from below the wide brim of his hat. "Do you? Seems they've abandoned you like your whore did. You have no one to stand for you. This city is going back into the hands of upright, God-fearing men who will wash her clean of the diseases you've let infest her."

They're standing in broad daylight in the middle of Main Street, and Lucius is struck by how _quiet_ it suddenly is. Might as well be a ghost town. All it needs is a few tumbleweeds blowing by to become a complete cliche. This ain't the Wild West, but with the sun blaring down and grit in the air, it might as well be.

Lucius knows somehow - just knows - that this is his fight now. He's the only one he'll be able to rely on to get himself out of it. He's got no weapons on him, but what he's got is a big size advantage on Stevens. So he surges forward suddenly and swings a massive first right into Stevens' face. There's a satisfying _crunch_ of snapping bone, and Stevens tumbles backward to the ground, his nose gushing blood.

The rosewood revolver clatters to the dirt, and Lucius swipes it up, pointing it right at Stevens' head. He sweeps a ferocious look around the others. "The first one of you that moves is gonna get Stevens here a bullet right between the eyes." To Stevens, he growls, "This is _my_ city, you understand? I built this city _on my back_ , and no pissant like you is gonna take it away from me. Tell them to put their guns down. _Now_."

As he says this, he starts to give Amos a self-satisfied look over one shoulder: _See? I didn't need you_.

He doesn't even register the gunshot at first. The way the flat sound echoes, it could have been thunder or a horse kicking a stable wall.

He doesn't register it until something feels like it bursts in his chest, until pain steals his breath, until he falls to his knees, stunned.

 _My suit_ , he thinks nonsensically. _I'm getting my suit dirty._

When he looks down at the front of his suit, the blood-red rose he'd pinned to his lapel has bloomed over his heart, its petals spreading out almost like a starburst.

He can't breathe.

Distantly, he hears a flurry of gunshots all at once, and manages to lift his head in time to see all of Stevens' men fall over dead. Stevens dies last, a hole punched between his eyes.

Lucius collapses to his side, gasping.

Footsteps crunch toward him.

His vision begins to dim.

Amos, haloed the sun, appears right above him. He's fiery-eyed and furious and _beautiful_. Lucius lifts a shaking blood-rose hand to touch that face, and feels wonder and regret. He's never noticed before how beautiful Amos really is in his rage. How _extraordinary_. And it's only now, at the end, that he can finally put a name to just exactly what Amos is to him.

Not sheep. Not whore. Not bedmate.

He opens his mouth to say the word, but only manages a bloody gargling.

"Stupid," Amos growls from a very long ways away. He's almost too dim to see now. "We always get this wrong. Every goddamn _when_ we get it wrong."

Lucius's body convulses in a sudden flare of pain. It snaps things into focus for the briefest of instants. "Next..." he gasps. "Next...when. Next..."

"Yeah." Amos raises his gun to his own head. "Wait for me."

Pride dies with the sound a gunshot ringing in his ears.

* * *

(They don't even meet again the next when.

But neither of them lives long enough for it to really matter.

So it goes.)

* * *

In _this_ when, the soon-to-be Roman Reigns bolts awake with his heart trip-hammering in his ears, loud, like an army is marching on his chest. The dream-fragments cling to his skin like shrapnel. He has to touch his chest just to make sure there's no blood rose blooming across it.

It's dry.

He's alive.

No gunshot.

"Jesus," he mutters into the blank-black of his bedroom. His skin's skim-coated with sweat, hair a lank curtain around his face. "Jesus _Christ_."

He paws his face with a shaking hand.

It takes a lot more than that to shake the dream.

He still hasn't by the time he makes to the converted grocery store that houses FCW.

Images of some western city he's never seen before crowd his memory, a wide dusty street lined with saloons and small stores. Hitching posts for horses everywhere. A fountain with a statue of an angel in the middle. The vague smell of dirt and horse shit and unwashed bodies. Gunpowder. Blood.

 _Not real_ , he tells himself on his way back to the locker room to get changed. _It's not real_.

It's promo class this morning.

On the one hand, promo class is easier than in-ring training; on the other hand, everyone will be there. Not even the ones wrestling regularly on FCW TV are exempt. Each session is recorded and sent up to Stamford to be gone over. That means Roman will have to see Ambrose - _Amos_ , his traitor mind supplies - whether he wants to or not.

 _Or not_ would be great.

It isn't Ambrose that he sees first, though.

It's the Rollins kid, whom Roman's brain tries to call Shrewd Robert.

He squashes that thought before it can bloom into anything that might distract him.

Rollins is sitting off to one side, alone at the far end of the row. Two seats over from him is Johnny Curtis and Mike Dalton. In the row behind them, there's Husky Harris and Bo Rotundo. And it's like fireworks in Roman's head because suddenly there are the brothers Cook from his dream, and their neighbors Curtis Johnson and Tyler Dalton. He can practically hear them arguing about the money Lazy Beau had yet to repay. It-

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Golden Boy," a rough voice says at his shoulder.

Roman's heart slams forward against his sternum. "I told you not to call me that."

"Why do you look like you've seen a ghost?" Ambrose demands again.

"None of your damn business. Leave me the hell alone." Roman walks away without even looking around. He takes one of the empty seats in the back row, away from everybody.

Because he apparently can't be anything other than a pain in the ass, Ambrose plops down in the seat directly in front of Roman, and twists around. He looks serious, Ambrose does, down-pulled eyebrows and his mouth a line. "Dream?" he says. "'Cuz if so, you ain't the only one."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Blue eyes narrow, sharpen to laser points. "You're a bad liar."

"I'm not lying," Roman says between his teeth. "Shut up and stop bothering me."

"Wanna know what I dreamed about?"

"No."

Ambrose leans over the back of the chair so he's closer. Nobody's even looking their way, busy as they all are talking amongst themselves. "We were in France. It was like the 1700s or somethin. You were a writer. I fixed shit. And, like. Wasn't just us there. Was Rollins, Mike, Husky, Bo, and Johnny. Rollins was a banker. Husky had a bakery the rest of 'em worked at. We lived above it. You started fucking Rollins behind my back. Which was hilarious because you hated each other. I found out. Got so mad I locked you both in the apartment and burnt the fucker to ground. Bakery, too. Couple of the buildings next to it. Everybody died. Then I threw myself off a fucking bridge." He pauses, palming his cheek. "That's what I dreamed. Is that fucked up or what?"

William Regal and Dusty Rhodes make their way into the training area before Roman can answer.

Ambrose twists back around, attention suddenly on Regal with all the keenness of a hunting dog on its prey.

It's a relief.

 _Is that fucked up or what_?

Before he turns his attention to Dusty, Roman glances down the row, and finds both Rollins and Husky looking at him, quiet and thoughtful.

 _What the hell is going on here_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, forgot to mention this, but: 
> 
> Mike Dalton = Tyler Breeze  
> Johnny Curtis = Fandango  
> Husky Harris = Bray Wyatt  
> Bo Rotundo = Bo Dallas
> 
> Those were their names they wrestled under before they changed. This actually comes into play later in the story.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two. No flashbacks or anything in this one. Just kind of setting them in the present day of FCW. A revelation.

**Chapter 2**

_What the hell is going on here?_

It's a question that remains a thorn in Roman's side for  _days_ , with no answers forthcoming.

He's on tenterhooks, expecting some weird seismic shift to happen and shake up his life even further, but nothing changes.

After promo class that day, though, William Regal pulls Ambrose aside to talk to him, allowing Roman to escape in peace and quiet. He makes it down to the weight room without running into anyone, throws his headphones on, and settles into his workout.

The day goes off like most of his days do: workout, in-ring workout, wrestling matches into the evening.

The coaches openly praise his lifting technique.

The coaches openly praise his Samoan Drop.

Dusty himself openly praises him for being willing to stay late.

It rubs on people, Roman can tell, but he just squares his shoulders and keeps doing his thing.

Things like this will be why he shoots to the top while all the whiners and crybabies never get anywhere.

Not once does he see Ambrose.

The others he does, all scattered around the training rings to work on whatever the trainers want them to work on, but none of them approach him. He doesn't really pay them any attention. Never has. Making friends and being popular has never been his aim here.

He goes home still unsettled, but relieved that the day is over.

A long phone call to his parents helps distract him, and a baseball game on TV sends him to sleep.

No weird-ass dreams helps even more.

For the next few days, things are actually pretty normal: he goes to training and comes back to his little apartment. He sees everybody but Ambrose around the facility, and doesn't talk to them. A few times he sees them looking at him or at each other, and he thinks maybe they  _do_  look like they're trying to remember something, but he doesn't ask.

Isn't, it turns out, sure he wants to know.

It's only those five, too: Rollins, Johnny Curtis, Mike Dalton, Bo, and Husky. Roman doesn't get those strange vibes from anyone else, and as far as he can tell, none of them seem to be looking strangely at anyone outside that group, either.

Ambrose turns up the following Tuesday looking a little burnt out.

"They sent me to Raleigh and Charlotte," he says by way of explanation. Roman hadn't even asked. They're in the locker room, changing for practice. A few lockers down, Rollins lifts his head. "I worked the opener at the house show, and the dark before  _Raw_. Probably do it again this weekend."

"You're already working the main roster?" Rollins asks, scowling. He's half-dressed - shorts and shoes. His shirt's still in his hands. "You just got here."

A careless shrug and, "They're working on something with Daniel Bryan, and they wanted somebody who'd wrestled him before to work against him."

" _I've_  worked against him," Rollins says, and he sounds affronted. "Many times. We had some of the best matches of the  _year_  together. If anybody should be up there wrestling him, it's me. I've been here for a year. I'm ready to move up. I've  _been_  ready. I should - you know what? I'm gonna go talk to Dusty."

(Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between Greed and Envy.)

"Don't get your shorts in a twist, cupcake," Ambrose says waspishly. He flings his hoodie into his locker and unzips his battered duffle. "It's a few curtain-jerker matches. Not like I'm on TV or anything. Jesus. Calm down."

" _Cupcake_?!" Rollins splutters.

He glares at Ambrose. Ambrose stares right back, a wicked curl to his mouth. Things become very still in the room while everyone stops to watch. There's this crackling energy in the air between them.

"Cup.  _Cake_ ," Ambrose says then, slow and deliberate. Popping the P. He looks like somebody who's found a button and is gleefully pushing it. "That's better than 'whiny little bitch,' right? Gonna go talk to Dusty. Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? What are you like  _five_? 'Oh, he's got a better toy than me, Daddy. Gimme it.' Fuck you, cupcake."

Rollins hasn't done a lot to ingratiate himself to people here, so Roman sees a few folks smiling outright at the outrage on Rollins' face. Roman doesn't. He doesn't sympathize with Rollins at all, but neither does he like what Ambrose is doing, either.

That's a powderkeg waiting to blow up.

"No,  _fuck_  you," Rollins spits. "Coming in here thinking you're hot shit, when you're just some garbage gimmick wrestler. Do you even  _know_  how to wrestle without weapons?"

"Guess I know who's gonna be the first person to find out." Ambrose laughs wildly. It's got that cracked glass sound to it that sets the little hairs at the back of Roman's neck on end. "You're  _cute_  when you're trying to be tough. You know that? You're like a... I dunno. Like a kitten or something. The way you get all hissy. It's fucking adorable."

"That's it!' Rollins steps forward. "That's fucking  _it_ , Ambrose-"

" _No_ ," Roman cuts in. It surprises him, the way his voice fills the room. Now everyone's watching him. He likes that, but he ignores everybody but Ambrose and Rollins. He looks back and forth between them. It's like looking back and forth between a couple of puffed up tomcats. "You two save that for the ring, if you're gonna do it. Don't do it here. And grow the hell up. Both of you."

It's satisfying how taken aback both of those two mutts look, wide eyes and sprung jaws.

Naturally, Ambrose recovers faster. "Whoa-ho-ho. Look at Golden Boy here, thinkin' he's in charge."

"I didn't say I was in charge," Roman says, calmly turning away to grab his shorts. "I just said stop acting like a couple idiots before you get yourselves in trouble. I'm doing you a favor." He gives Rollins a pointed look. "Both of you."

While Rollins gives Roman a sullen look, Ambrose just turns away.

That's familiar, too, and Roman doesn't understand why.

* * *

He doesn't get as much TV time as he'd like, and what time he does get he mostly spends working with different guys as part of tag teams.

He doesn't complain, though. The FCW roster is full of guys who do nothing but, and he's never been one to follow the herd. The pissers and moaners, they don't seem to realize that there are eyes and ears everywhere in the building. It never occurs to them that their locker room behavior is being watched just as closely as their behavior in the ring.

All those questions:  _Who's a leader?_

_Who's gonna be a pain in the ass?_

_Who gets along well with everybody?_

_Who's the dead weight?_

His mama didn't raise a fool, so he just puts his head down and works on getting the last of that football weight off, on making his moves in the ring that much crisper, and on his promos. The promos are still awkward as hell - he's stiff as a board in front of the camera - but everything else comes together nicely.

Even if it's just tag team work, it's still ring time.

TV time.

It's a sign the higher-ups have got faith in him.

He's never rude to anybody, but he doesn't go out of his way to be friendly with anyone. It's different than it was in football, where everyone in the locker room was on the same team and working for the same goal. Here, it's cutthroat: you're looking for weak links you can step over to get yourself moved up that much faster.

FCW is dead-end island.

There's guys been down here for three, four years still clinging to some false sense of hope - not realizing they're only being kept down here because they always need bodies for squash matches. In a couple more years, they'll get their dreams crushed and be flicked away to go chase the scraps with the rest of the mutts in the independents.

What cream is here will rise to the top and eventually be plucked off to go onto bigger things.

Roman knows that's him.

He carries himself like he knows it, too, ignoring everybody who says he's quiet and unapproachable.

He's a man with goals, that's all.

It's not his problem if people don't like that.

* * *

Anger spins off to go be a thorn in Greed's side.

Roman would've thought it'd be a relief not to have the guy underfoot with his too-knowing eyes and that glass-cutter grin, but it's not. It honestly - and wild horses will never drag this out of Roman - feels like there's something missing. One day Ambrose is right there, yammering away at Roman's shoulder, and the next it's like Roman doesn't even exist.

By insinuating Ambrose was just a garbage gimmick wrestler, Rollins manages to piss Ambrose off.

It's a slow burn, but when it catches, it's like touching a match to dry tinder.

That little spark explodes into lava-hot rage so fast it's eerie.

Ambrose destroys his first opponent - a going-nowhere high-flyer who's been on the roster too long - with a surprising degree of tactical precision, targeting the flyer's knee and swatting him down like a fly. Afterward, he grabs a mic and  _howls_  at Rollins, threat and challenge all in one. So much menace and fury he looks possessed.

" _SEEEEEEEEEEETH! Se-eth!"_

Roman, watching with a few other guys on the monitor backstage, glances at Rollins.

Sees Rollins swallow.

After that, Ambrose stays on Rollins like a hawk. Obsession: a predator with a prey he doesn't want to get away from him. Anytime they're in the same room together, Ambrose's eyes track Rollins' every movement. During in-ring workouts, Ambrose watches Rollins, studies him. During tapings, Ambrose is right in front of the monitor, locked in with laser focus. Every promo, Ambrose hangs on each word like he's trying to burn them into his brain. In the locker room, Ambrose stares holes in Rollins' back.

It's like no one else exists.

Rollins does a bad job of pretending he's not rattled by it.

He walks around, Rollins does, clutching that FCW 15 medal to his chest in a way that seems awful lot like Gollum from  _Lord of the Rings_. He never hisses, "My preeeecious," but the way he looks at that medal sometimes, Roman gets the impression that's what he's thinking. He doesn't seem to have any interest in fighting Ambrose at all, brushing off any ringside mention of Ambrose as not worth his time.

But he's sweating his balls off, that's for sure.

The funniest part where Roman's sitting is that he's positive Ambrose doesn't give a damn about that medal. Ambrose, like a lot of guys here, just wants to introduce Rollins' face to the turnbuckle a time or a hundred. Rollins either doesn't get it or doesn't care, because all he seems concerned about is protecting his shiny little trinket.

More than once, Roman catches the guy darting looks over his shoulder in the parking lot at day's end.

Of course, on more than one occasion, Roman sees the angry orange glow of a cigarette tucked into a smoky shadow, too, so Rollins might be right to be worried.

It's like waiting for a bomb to explode when you can't see the timer.

Roman watches it all from a distance, too busy focusing on his own training to stick his nose into their shit, but it permeates every corner of FCW for a while, so he can't help but notice it.

He notices.

He doesn't want to notice, but he does.

He doesn't want to notice how invisible how he's become to Ambrose, either, because that doesn't matter. It's just that he's used to the guys in the locker room looking at him with a certain amount of respect. Even if it's grudging, everyone seems to be watching him, sizing him up, taking him in. He's got something about him that draws people's eye - aura, size,  _it_  - and he's used to not having to work hard to command their attention.

He is not used to someone walking right past him like he's not even there.

He is not used to someone not even looking up when he sits next to them.

He is not used to someone not looking at him with at least grudging respect.

He is not used to someone focusing on him that scary, intent way Ambrose had, and then blanking on him.

That's unsettling, too, because he feels like he's just waiting for the bomb to go off in his life, too.

(" _I just said we know each other_.")

* * *

Dusty Rhodes gives Rollins an ultimatum: either give Ambrose a damn match or give up the FCW 15 medal.

Rollins agrees to a match.

Roman is glad: hopefully things will get back to normal afterward.

He has no more dreams, at least, and although he catches the others - Husky Harris in particular - giving him weird looks from time to time, nothing comes out of that, either. They don't even try to talk to him.

Once this powderkeg blows, it ought to settle things down.

He hopes.

* * *

When Anger and Greed meet in the ring for the first time, Pride sits watching in the back room with Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Envy and the rest of the roster. It's mandatory. Husky, Bo, and Johnny and Mike sit beside Roman in the front row and lean toward the monitor almost in unison. Roman, on the other hand, sits back with his arms folded, refusing to acknowledge the charge in the air.

The way he can't seem to take his eyes off either one of those two when they make their entrances.

They way it feels like something big is happening when they're finally standing face to face.

The way it feels familiar.

Rollins, to his credit, doesn't look afraid now that he's standing center-ring in his wrestling trunks.

Ambrose bounces up to him like a rubber ball, mouth running at a hundred miles an hour, trash talk flowing like water, but Rollins, he doesn't bite. He lets it wash past him, narrowed dark eyes and sneering lips. It's the look of a person who's watching somebody make a jackass out of themselves, and can't wait to put them in their place.

The bell rings, and it's almost hypnotic the way Ambrose and Rollins circle each other, Rollins a touch smaller and more compact, and Ambrose tall and lanky and lean. Ambrose is smooth on his way around, serpentine in a way Roman's sure will give William Regal masturbation material for a week.

But Roman still doesn't let himself get drawn into it. It's two mutts scraping over a piece of bone with no meat on it. He can't think of anything more pointless.

If he has to give the edge to anyone in this match, though, it's Rollins.

He's seen what Rollins can do, and even if the kid is obnoxious, he can wrestle his ass off.

Nobody better at FCW right now than that kid.

Maybe if he beats Ambrose here, that'll be the end of it.

They chain wrestle at first, getting a feel for the way they match up. It's neat. Ambrose takes the worst of it, ending up on his back first. Rollins gets that smug-asshole look on his face Roman dislikes.

That's the start.

When Ambrose gets up, there's fire in his eyes and this twist of a grin like he  _enjoyed_  it.

Roman leans forward unthinkingly, and to his surprise, finds himself thinking,  _Come on, Ambrose._

_Show me something_.

He does.

They both do.

Two dogs scrapping over a measly bone, but it turns out neither one ever can find an advantage, not for long. For every punch Rollins throws, Ambrose punches back. Every clothesline Ambrose throws, Rollins throws one back. Every big move Rollins hits, Ambrose fights out of. Every time Ambrose gets an advantage, Rollins flips the tables.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and Roman suddenly can't look away.

They are  _magnetic_ , the way they collide.

You could hear a pin drop in the locker room where Roman's sitting.

Not one of them has a dog in this fight anymore.

They all just want to see these two annihilate each other.

Neither one stays in control of the match for more than thirty seconds at a time. They throw everything they have at each other, including Rollins flipping over the top rope right onto Ambrose, but it's not enough. That smug-ass look on Rollins' face gets wiped away, and frustration comes out instead because no matter how he hits Ambrose, the guy  _just. won't. stay. down_. Every time he's with something that should be his end, he drags himself back to his feet like some horror-movie villain, blue eyes burning like a couple of gaslights.

But Rollins ain't a pushover. He gets hit hard and fights out of it, makes it back to his feet, gaze snapping around to his metal like it's giving him some extra strength.

Ambrose claws Rollins' back. Rollins claws his. They try - and fail - to throw each other off the top turnbuckle. Rollins gets Ambrose to his knees and tries for his finishing kick, but Ambrose catches his foot. Ambrose gets Rollins up for his finisher, but Rollins twists out of it.

In his frustration, Ambrose pounds the mat with a couple fists, tears his hair, snarls.

He looks rabid.

Rollins seems just close to a breaking-point.

The last two minutes are a frenzy of them just throwing punches at each other - not even trying to be pretty or stay inside the rules. They ignore the ref, and just scrap and kick and claw just exactly like the mutts they are.

When the bell rings, they're locked together right in the middle of the ring, still punching away, and the score is nothing-nothing.

Neither wins.

Neither loses.

Rollins gets to keep his medal by default, but when he steps away, he's shaken.

And Ambrose, he glares at the ref like he wants to rip the guy's head off.

That ref goes to hand Greed the medal back, but Anger snatches it out of his hands and throws it toward the control room. A petty little boy throwing another kid's toy away.

In the back room, half the roster grumbles in protest.

But Pride, he smiles.

He doesn't know why he smiles, but he does.

On the monitor, Greed scrambles out of the ring to get his medal.

Anger stalks away.

* * *

From the sounds of slamming, Ambrose is not a happy camper.

Nobody goes back into the locker room until they hear the exit door down the hall slam shut.

Most everybody stops to congratulate Rollins on keeping his medal, but Rollins has this faraway, troubled look on his face. "I didn't win," he says at some point. "I didn't beat that asshole. I should have mopped the canvas with his face, but I didn't. But I got my medal, at least. I got that. I got my medal."

"You'll get him next time," Bo assures Rollins. "You got this, man."

Roman leaves that scene and heads out into the quiet Florida evening, bag slung over his shoulder. It's late enough that the sun's been snuffed down to a neon orange smear on the horizon. He's not surprised to see a tinier glow in shadows of a smoky corner.

Any other night, Roman would have kept on walking, but he's had enough of being ignored. "You didn't win," he remarks, pausing at the edge of the pool of streetlight Ambrose is apparently trying to avoid.

His answer comes on a sharp exhale. "Fuck off."

"You didn't lose, either," Roman points out, careful to keep his tone mild. "I was sure you would, but you didn't."

"I know how to fucking wrestle!" Ambrose snaps. The tip of his cigarette flares angry with a deep drag. "I don't need fucking weapons. I can wrestle all day, every fucking day of the week. Not just some weapons match guy. I was fucking trained how to wrestle by people who knew their shit. Fucker."

"I saw that," Roman says. "I only thought he'd beat you because I haven't seen you wrestle as much as I've seen him. I didn't know. Now I do."

"Yeah, whatever," Ambrose says. "'M not fuckin' done with that prick, anyway. Fuckin'  _garbage_  wrestler. I'm gonna make him swallow that fucking medal next time." It finally seems to dawn on him who he's talking. "Oh, hey, Golden Boy. Shit. How've your dreams been lately?"

"Don't call me that."

It's useless. Ambrose ignores him. "I don't think you ever told me what your dream was about. The one that spooked you so bad."

Roman shakes his head. "Dunno what you're talking about, man."

"Liar." Ambrose deliberately blows smoke in Roman's direction. "Whattya lyin for? Told you you're shit at it. Or maybe I just know you better 'n you think I do. What when was it? What'd you dream, huh? C'mon. I told ya mine. The bakery 'n shit."

"You said you burned it down."

"You cheated on me with fucking  _Rollins_  of all people. What the fuck."

"I didn't cheat on you with anybody," Roman feels compelled to point out. "That was just a dream, for one, and for another, I wouldn't touch Rollins with a ten-foot pole."

For whatever reason, there's a smile in Ambrose's voice when he says, "Well, he's straight as straight gets in this when. Total zero on the Kinsey scale. Got like a fiance an' a couple, three chicks here he's bangin' on the side. Through 'n through ladies man. Don't worry - he's not gonna want your pole anywhere near him. Anyway, what when?"

"What?"

"What when? You dream. What when was it? And don't lie to me. I will haunt you until you tell me."

Annoyed, Roman stares at the dark brick above Ambrose's head. Had he really thought it was bad not having this asshole dogging him? "It was just a dream," he says firmly, "so don't make anything out of it. I don't know exactly when it was, but it felt like mid-eighteen hundreds."

Ambrose's cigarette falls from his fingers. "Lucius Wright?"

All the air rushes out of Roman's lungs at once. "What did you say?"

"Lucius," Ambrose repeats, stepping out into the light. His eyes are huge. "Mr. Mayor. Got shot in the chest. Had him a guy named Amos. Kind of his right-hand man. They had a thing going. Except it wasn't enough for Lucius. And he said so. It pissed Amos off so he stood aside when a posse came for Lucius. He wasn't quick enough to save you, even when he wanted to."

"How do you know that?" Roman hears himself ask.

A tongue on the lips, just a quick flick before it disappears, before Ambrose drops a bomb. "Was either the night I signed the contract or maybe it was one of the nights right after, but I had that dream. That was the first one. Was that your dream? That was, wasn't it? You had the same dream I did."

"That..." Roman backs away a step. "That ain't possible, man. People don't have the same dream."

"Yeah, well, looks like we did." Ambrose shoves a hand into sweaty hair and spins away. He's still wearing his ring gear, Roman suddenly notices: black trunks, knee pads, and boots. No shirt. Must have grabbed his cigarettes and came straight out here. He paces away. " _Fuck_. I've been so fucking focused on Rollins I didn't even think to  _ask_. Forgot all about it. Fucking idiot. What the fuck, asshole?"

"You talking to me?" Roman asks, uneasy.

"Huh?" Ambrose's head snaps Roman's way. "No. You had any other dreams?"

"No."

"Yeah, me neither - not since the bakery. That was my second one. What the fuck?"

"How do we even know it was the same dream?" Roman demands. This is nuts. People don't share dreams. "Maybe it's just a coincidence."

The words feel wrong even as he says them, like they're misshapen. It gets Ambrose to stop pacing, at least, but the guy stops right in Roman's personal space. "Lucius was wearing a gray suit with a red rose on the lapel. Amos was wearing his good black shirt. He shot himself in the head right after Lucius died. Look me in the eye and tell me that didn't happen in your dream, Golden Boy."

It's the verbal equivalent of a sucker-punch. Roman blows out a hard breath, feels something shift in him. "That happened. How the hell is that possible?"

"How is any of it possible? I look at you, the cupcake, Husky, Mike, Johnny, and Bo, and I know I know you guys. They were there in the dream. How the fuck is that possible? You notice any of them lookin' at you weird?"

"All of them, yeah," Roman admits. "Why?"

"Hey, ask Rollins if he's had any dreams."

"Why me?"

"'Cuz he ain't gonna wanna talk to me after I threw his medal tonight. I don't think I'm gonna be able to keep from explodin' his nose if I get around him. You ask him. I'll see if I can find any of the others. I've seen 'em lookin, too. Jesus, what the fuck is my problem? I knew all this and I meant to ask, but it's like once Rollins pissed me off I couldn't get him outta my fuckin' head. Fuck. I got this feeling like I told you where I feel like there's a lot of shit I don't remember. And this dream, fuck, it almost felt like a memory. I dunno. You get that?"

"Maybe," Roman admits, but he's reluctant. It feels like he's teetering on the edge of falling into a very deep hole here. There's a lot to be said for letting sleeping dogs lie, for just ignoring all this weird bullshit, putting his head down, and focusing on his career.

On the other hand, he's got this feeling it's going to blow back on him whether he wants it to or not.

Whatever it is.

"Maybe hell," Ambrose says. "Look, I'm gonna go see if I can find any of the others. Why don't you go see if you can catch Rollins before he leaves? Just ask if he's had any weird dreams. I'll find you when I'm done."

He's earnest now, hopeful, and nothing like the sly, sharp guy who'd slid under Roman's skin the first night they'd met. He's looking at Roman like maybe Roman's the answer to a question, and it makes it awful difficult for Roman to find the will to say no.

It's going to blow back on him, anyway, probably, so he says, "All right. I'll go find him."

"Thanks," Ambrose says, already on his way to the door.  There's a new spring in his step.

Roman looks up at the sky and thinks,  _You can wake up anytime now_.

_Anytime_.

He shoulders his bag and heads back inside.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of talking and some dreaming. This is pretty dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to help keep you it all straight because I know it might get confusing:
> 
> Husky Harris = Bray Wyatt = Virgil Cray (in Roman's dream)  
> Bo Rotundo = Bo Dallas = Lazy Eye Cray  
> Mike Dalton = Tyler Breeze = Little Tommy  
> Johnny Curtis = Fandango = Louis
> 
> The rest I think you can figure out. We'll get to a point fairly soon where it'll be a lot simpler.

**Chapter 3**

It's not hard to find Rollins.

All Roman has to do is follow the sound of that whiny, nasal voice through halls and to the locker room. Rollins isn't actually whining about anything this time - he's just talking to somebody about some training regiment he's thinking about starting - but his voice just makes it sound that way. He's unlucky like that.

Damien Sandow leaves the locker room as Roman makes his way in, giving Roman that brief subconscious nod on his way past.

Roman nods back.

Inside, Rollins is alone, seated on the bench in front of his locker. His hair is pulled back into a wet ponytail like he'd just showered, but he's only wearing his jeans. Still barefoot and bare-chested. His metal is in one hand, the ribbon draped over his wrist, and he's staring at the wall, a thousand miles away.

"Hey," Roman says, scuffing his foot over the tile so as not to startle the guy.

"Huh?" Rollins blinks at him. "Oh. Hey. 'S up, Roman?"

"Not much." Roman makes his way in and sits down on the bench in front of his own locker, which is a short way down the row. Close enough for comfortable conversation, but not so close they're crowded. "I saw your match."

Rollins' mouth compresses. "Everybody saw the match. What a fucking joke that was."

"A joke? I thought it was actually a hell of a match-"

"I wasn't talk about the match. I was talking about afterward. Throwing this." Rollins raises his fist, knuckles white-tight around his shiny trinket. "Somebody needs to teach that piece of shit a lesson about respecting history. Dusty says there's gonna be another match a week from tonight. Twenty minutes this time. I'll show him. Trying to take my medal."

It's on Roman's tongue to tells Rollins it ain't about the medal, but something stops him. Not his fight. Not his problem. "I'm sure you will. Listen, can I just ask...? I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, but I got the feeling I know you from somewhere. Like I knew you before."

"From where?" Rollins asks, lowering his hand. He's wary. It's in the narrowed eyes and the way he leans back away. "Did we meet somewhere or something? 'Cuz, I gotta say, I get that feeling, too. I just can't place it."

"Me neither," Roman admits. "I don't know, man. We never met before I got here, I don't think. It's not just you, though. Did you notice that? There's others I feel like I know."

It takes Rollins a few seconds to get around to nodding. "I get that feeling, too. Some of the guys, I don't know. I look at all you guys, and it's like, 'Where the hell do I know you from?' Kinda been driving me nuts. Itch I can't scratch. It's you, Husky, Bo, Johnny-"

"Mike and Ambrose," Roman finishes for him. "Yeah, that's who all it is for me and Ambrose, too."

Dark eyebrows inch up. "You and Ambrose, huh?"

There's a whole layer of implication in those four words that Roman does his best to ignore. "He's the one who brought all this up to me a few weeks ago. Got me curious. I'm wondering - because I have - if you've had any weird dreams lately. Vivid ones. Probably with all seven of us in there. That ring any bells?"

Before he answers, Rollins grabs a tee shirt from his bag and slips it on. He zips his FCW 15 medal into a side pouch of the same bag. Then he shifts closer to Roman on the bench, and says, in a church-hushed voice, "You ever seen the movie  _Robin Hood_? The Kevin Costner version."

"Yeah," Roman says. "Yeah, I saw it when I was a kid. It's been a while, though."

"It was like that," Rollins says. "Middle Ages, kinda. I've never had a dream like it. Nightmare. It was a nightmare. I was some kind of tax collector. I know that I collected for you. You were a landowner or a nobleman or something. I don't remember. Only the money and the goods I collected kept getting stolen by these thieves. It was all the others. Husky and Ambrose and those guys. They stole it from me."

That last rings a little false, like someone hitting the wrong key in the middle of a piano piece. Roman catches himself frowning. "Go on."

"Well, somehow you ended up dead. They blamed me for it. So they killed me." Rollins swallows. "Ambrose beat me half to death. He was out-of-his-mind crazy, right? Then the others tied me to horses. I woke up right before my arms and legs were about to get ripped off. It was so far beyond fucked up up that I don't even want to talk about it."

More of those off-notes. "They thought you killed me. Did you?"

"No?"

"You're lying," Roman says with certainty. It's clear as day. Now he knows how Ambrose feels. "You did. What happened?"

"Look." Rollins wipes his mouth. "It's - it was just a dream, but... And it's not like I straight-up murdered you. You thought I was the one stealing from you, and you came to confront me. You were - you... You and Ambrose were - close. I think he turned you against me. We fought. We fell. You were choking me. I grabbed a rock and hit you with it. I wasn't trying to kill you. It just happened. You know? Heat of the moment. They - the others - came in to find you. Like I said, Ambrose snapped and just kicked the shit out of me. And then they tied me to horses. And then I woke up."

"Jesus fucking Christ," a voice says from the doorway. "You too, huh?"

Rollins glares past Roman. "Get the fuck outta here, Ambrose. Nobody's talking to you."

"You're talking about us, cupcake," Ambrose says.  _Us._  Roman looks around. Ambrose is standing just inside the doorway with Husky, Bo, Johnny Curtis, and Mike Dalton all clustered together behind him. He makes his way into the room. The others follow like baby ducks. "We all need to talk, anyway."

Roman catches Ambrose's eye. "We do?"

Ambrose nods on his way over to grab one of the spare folding chairs. He turns it around backward and plops it down a short ways in front of where Roman and Seth are sitting. Mike and Johnny sit down on Seth's other side, while Husky and Bo grab chairs of their own and join Ambrose.

"Might as well," Ambrose tells Roman. "It involves us all, so it's pretty stupid not to involve us all in the conversation."

"Point," Roman concedes, reluctantly.

* * *

"So something weird as fuck is going on here," Ambrose says. The master of eloquence. He's just wearing his ring gear, still, black trunks that don't leave a lot to the imagination when he splays his legs open. "I don't know what it is, but what I do know is it's got something to do with the seven of us. We all feel we know each other from somewhere. Does anybody have any fucking idea where?"

Everyone exchanges glances around the loose circle, and the thing that strikes Roman is that nobody looks surprised or confused or like they don't know what Ambrose is talking about. They know. It's how fast some of them look at each other, like they just had something confirmed.

None of them says anything, though, not to that.

Big Husky Harris is the one who breaks the silence, turning to look at Ambrose. "What do you know? You were askin' about dreams before. Why?"

"Because that's a thing. Dreams. I've had two. Roman's had one. Sounds like the cupcake has had one." Ambrose ignores Rollin's glare. "Who else? I'm talking like super-vivid. More vivid than movies. You'd know the difference between that and a regular dream."

"Me," Bo offers, stirring from his slouch beside his brother. "Just a couple weeks ago. I was on a ship somewhere. I was supposed to be looking out for raiders? But I was tired so I went to sleep. The ship got boarded and everybody got killed. I fell off the ship and I drowned. It was like you said. Like a movie. I'd never had a dream that real before."

"Were any of us in it?" Ambrose asks.

"I don't think so," Bo says, frowning. He tends to smile a lot, and sometimes it's an odd smile, but he's not smiling now. Now he's serious. "I don't remember seeing any of you."

"You didn't tell me that," Husky says, quiet voice rolling across the room. "That you had a dream."

"I just thought it was a dream," Bo says with a loose shrug. "I didn't think it was worth talking about. Did you have one?"

"No."

"I didn't either," Johnny Curtis says. He's as tall as Bo and Husky, but thicker with muscle than either of them.  Greased short brown hair. He's been around for a while. At the beginning of the year, he'd been called up to the main roster, but they'd bumped him back down here a couple months ago. Roman's not sure and doesn't really care why. "This is weird, man. I know what you mean about knowing each other before. I don't know where. It's like having a name right on the tip of your tongue."

"I didn't have a dream, either," Mike puts in, quiet and tentative. He's the smallest of them, an agile blond who hasn't been here all that long. "But right before I fall asleep lately, I keep seeing this place. It's creepy. There's this field. The sky is the wrong color. The ground is all scorched away. It feels like a bad place. Like something really bad happened there. I don't know why I keep seeing it."

Out of the corner of his eye, Roman sees Rollins sit up straight. "There's a creek bed that runs through it, right? The water's gone. Mountains around it. The sky is - it's not just gray, it's  _sick_. It's like..."

"Like looking at a body that's been decomposing for a couple days." Quiet words, and as soon as Ambrose says it, Roman can see the place clear as day in his own mind's eye. His mouth goes dry.

"Makes you want to throw up just looking at it," he murmurs.

Mike looks back and forth between the three of them. "You've seen it, too?"

Rollins shakes his head. He looks confused. "No. I just - you started describing it, and then I could see it."

"Same," Ambrose says. "I could smell it."

Burnt wood and grass. Dirt. Decay. Roman's stomach folds over on itself. "Me too." He looks at Ambrose. "Something bad did happen there. What the hell?"

"Fuck, you think I know? Jesus Christ, his is..." He swallows. "This is fucked."

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Husky says. Calm. He tips back in his chair. "I didn't see anything at all."

"Me neither," his brother says, and Johnny echoes, "Yeah, neither did I."

"Interesting," Husky says again. "Somethin' don't feel quite right yet. I look at you three-" he sweeps Roman, Rollins, and Ambrose in a gesture "-and you're brighter than the rest of us. You especially." He stabs a thick finger at Ambrose. "You and Reigns, when you're standin' together, that's when it's brightest of all. But there's a light around you three especially. And there's light with us, too. Some. But I think we're still caterpillars. We're not fully hatched yet."

Mike and Johnny exchange a look. "I'm not a caterpillar," Mike mutters. "Are you a caterpillar?"

"No," Johnny says slowly, looking down at himself. "At least, I don't think so. I think I'm a guy."

"I don't think he means you're literally caterpillars," Ambrose says. "What do you mean it doesn't feel right? Like this isn't the right time, or what? What do you know?"

"Right time for what?" Rollins demands. "What are you guys even talking about? What even  _is_  this crap?"

Husky ignores him to answer Ambrose. "I just have feelings. I don't know anything. I don't think it's the wrong time for us to talk, but I don't think whatever's gonna happen will 'til the rest of us're metamorphosed. But we can talk. I think we're supposed to. Seth, what was your dream? The whole thing."

"No," Rollins says. "You tell me what you're talking about first. What's going to happen?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out, cupcake." Ambrose folds his forearms onto the back of his chair and rests his chin on them. "What was your dream?"

"What was yours, asshole?" Rollins shoots back.

"I burned down Husky's bakery because you and Roman pissed me off. You were all inside and you all died. I threw myself off a bridge." Ambrose holds Rollins' gaze, steady as anything. "What was yours?"

Rollins stares at Ambrose. "You...? What the  _fuck_."

"I don't think you should be judging," Roman tells him. "Tell them, or I will."

After a bit more staring and stalling, Rollins does. He tells them the same version he told Roman at first. It still has all those out-of-tune notes to it, especially when he talks about the money and goods being stolen. Roman notices frowns going back and forth between everybody, and realizes he's doing it, too.

Husky leans forward once Rollins is done. "Now why do I get the feeling that wasn't all true?"

"Because it wasn't," Ambrose drawls.

"No," Roman agrees. "It wasn't. You kept what you collected and blamed it on everyone else, didn't you? You killed me."

"It doesn't matter," Rollins says, shifting. "It was just a stupid dream. I didn't mean to kill anybody, anyway, unlike some of us." He gives Ambrose a pointed look. "Why aren't we talking about that?"

Ambrose's eyes narrow, and oh, there is lightning in his eyes. "You think I don't know how fucked up that was? Believe me, cupcake, I do."

"Roman," Husky breaks in. "What did you dream?"

Everyone turns to look at him, including Rollins and Ambrose. Roman straightens. He likes that, having their attention. It feels right. "Well," he says, and he proceeds to give a condensed version of his own dream. He leaves out the part where Lucius and Amos were involved, only mentioning a 'disagreement' between them that kept Amos from reacting in time.

It's not a lie; it's just an omission, so the others, they don't frown at him like they had Rollins.

"I had that same dream," Ambrose chimes in when Roman's done. "Right when I got signed, I had that dream. It was the first one. The one about the bakery was the second one. I had it a few weeks ago. The thing I keep remembering was the end. Something I - er, Amos - said to Lucius. 'We keep getting this wrong. Every single  _when_  we get this wrong.' He said, 'Next when, then.' I thought the same thing right before I threw myself off the bridge. 'Maybe we'll get it right next when.'"

"I thought that, too," Bo says, eyes widening. "'Boy, I really screwed up this time. I better get it right next when.' That's what I remember thinking right before I woke up."

" _When_." Rollins licks his lips. Looks like he's seen a ghost. "That - yeah. I - now that you say that, I had that thought, too. Just before. 'Next when, then.' That's what I said to myself."

"When," Husky muses. "That's familiar to me, too.  _When_. Some other  _when_. I think I've said that."

"I don't think I like this," Mike says, eyes flicking rapidly around the room. "No, I know I don't like this. Why do we keep ending up dead in your dreams? That's - beyond creepy. And that place? I don't like this at all. This is messed up."

Johnny wipes his palms on his jeans. "Yeah, man, I agree. I don't know what any of this is about, and I don't think I wanna know. I don't want to even be around any of you. It's - this is crazy."

Rollins sits up in a hurry. "Hey, maybe that's it. I don't know if I believe any of this means anything, but if it does, maybe it's a warning. Maybe we just - maybe we need to stay away from each other. You know? It seems like bad things happen when we're all togethet.  In the dreams, anyway. You know what I mean. I think maybe we should just stay away."

Roman looks over in time to catch Ambrose shaking his head. It must not sound right to him, either.

Johnny, on the other hand, gets to his feet and flicks greased brown hair out of his eyes. "That's exactly what it sounds like to me, man. I have more important things to worry about your weird dreams, anyway. Like the date I'm late for. I got two lovely ladies waiting for me. Let's just - let's not go near each other any more than we have to."

"I second that," Mike says. "I don't think I want any part of this creepiness. I have things to do. Things that I want." He eyes Johnny's leather jacket. "You know? I don't want  _this_. I'd love that jacket, though," he adss in an undertone.

"You're gonna just ignore what you're seeing before you go to sleep?" Ambrose asks him. "I don't think it's gonna go away."

Mike hesitates, but gets to his feet, crowding close to Johnny. "We should just do what Seth said and stay away from each other. I don't think I want to know."

"Agreed," Rollins says, shoving his feet into his shoes. "I'm going to get to the main roster as soon as humanly possible, and I don't have time for this crap. I don't care about these stupid dreams. Or whatever the hell it was Mike was talking about. I have bigger things on my horizon, and I don't want anything - or anyone - getting in my way. They're just dreams. It's - nothing."

Bo stands up himself and smiles at Husky. "I'm not sure this is worth worrying about, anyway. They're just dreams. Anyway, I'm pretty beat, so you wanna go?"

"I think it does bear thinkin' about, at least," Husky says, looking at everyone in turn. "But mayhap Seth there does have a point. Maybe there's somethin' about all of us bein' together that attracts whatever it is that brings the badness." He looks at Ambrose. "Couldn't hurt, you know. Us stayin' away from each other. That may well be what we need to do."

"You don't think it's worth maybe trying to figure out what the hell any of this means?" Ambrose demands. There's red creeping up his neck and into his cheeks, hard spots of color. "Or see if anybody knows anything that might shake somethin' loose? Like what just happened with Mike? Come on. There's somethin' goin on here. And you're, what, you're just gonna fuckin' walk away from it? Stick your heads in the sand?"

"Well." Husky rolls out of his chair and joins his brother near the door. "We'll think about it, at least. Chew on it. We do all work together, so we can meet up anytime we need to, can't we? If anything comes to anybody or if anybody else has dreams, we can talk about it then. But for now, we ought to stay out of each other's way and focus on the wrestlin'. That's why we're here. Anyway, it's late and I'm starvin', so if y'all wouldn't mind excusin' me, my brother and I are gonna head out."

They leave.

Everyone leaves.

"Ignoring it isn't gonna make it go away!" Ambrose yells after them. "Fuckers." He glares at Roman. "I suppose you're gonna wanna just stick your head in the sand, too, right?"

"It's a lot to take in, man," Roman says. "To be honest with you, yeah, I think this is something. The dreams and what Mike was describing. That's something, but I don't know if making a big deal about it is really gonna help anything. I just want to do my thing and take my spot. You know? And it's not like Rollins didn't have a point: so far, in all most of our dreams, it sounds like all we've done is kill each other or get killed when we're together. It could be telling us to stay away from each other."

"You're full of shit if you expect me to think you really believe that." Ambrose is radiating fury like a furnace. Watching him get up and kick his chair is like watching a clenched fist swing at a wall. "We shared a fucking dream, Roman. We fucking sat here five minutes ago, and me, you, and Rollins suddenly remembered a place just based on how Mike described it. Four of us have had dreams and we all know we know each other. Does that feel like a fucking warning to stay away from each other to you? Because it doesn't me."

"No," Roman admits, pushing to his feet, "but what do you expect us to do about it? I'm not saying I disagree with you but, man, this is a whole lot coming at us all at once. I get you want to talk about it and try to figure it out, but maybe what we all need is to take away and do what Husky said. Think about it. Maybe something will shake loose. But in the meantime, we're here to wrestle. I want to just do my thing and take my spot. I don't want anyone or anything to get in the way of that."

This feels really familiar. The way Ambrose tightens up even more and stalks across the room to grab his bag out of his locker, the way he flings it over his shoulder. It's all familiar. "Do whatever you want, then. I'll stay away from you. I got shit to do, anyway."

Roman steps away from the bench. "I didn't say you needed to stay away from me."

"Doesn't seem to end well, us bein' around each other," Ambrose replies on his way to the door. "I wouldn't wanna get in your way, anyway. See ya 'round."

Something down-deep tells Roman to go after him, to stop him, but another stronger voice tells him not to bother. They all just got this dumped on them tonight, and the best thing to do is take it away and turn it over. If anything else comes up, they can get together again. Ambrose is just being stubborn because he's not getting his way, and Roman doesn't need to be feeding into that.

Probably be better to talk to the guy in a day or two, after they've all cooled off.

He's here to wrestle.

All this other stuff is just a distraction he really doesn't need - not if he's going to make it out of dead-end island.

And so, Roman collects his things from his locker and heads home.

* * *

But that night he dreams.

Of course he does.

* * *

Chicago. 1927.

"I don't want to do this,"  _caporegime_  Dominic "Dom" Vitale says to the man on the ground in front of him.

The man, Connor Douglas, just a sorry shell of who he'd been a year ago, groans and lifts his head long enough to spit out a mouthful of blood. "It...it... Huh. Dom."

There's no one in this warehouse right now. All of Dom's men are waiting outside. Out of respect for the man who'd once been his lover and his closest ally, he'd told them all to beat it. There's not much left to worry about here; there's a husk in a filthy suit, with two broken legs, so much blood in his hair that it's red instead of sandy brown, and a face so thin Dom barely recognizes it.

Dom pulls a handkerchief out of his suit's pocket and hunkers down at Connor's side. He touches the folded cloth to Connor's forehead. For all that he has every reason to be unkind, Dom can't bring himself to be anything but gentle. One little square of fabric isn't enough to do much about the mess, though. It's like trying to bail out a flooding river with a shot glass. He sighs. "I really don't want to do this."

Blue eyes blink up at him. "Hurts."

"I know," Dom says. "You blew up two of my clubs, Connor. You killed Sal, Virgil and Lazy Eye, Louis and Tommy. Our friends, Connor. You killed them and a hundred others. You know I can't let that stand."

Together, the seven of them had broken open the largest alcohol smuggling route between Canada and the US. At a time when Prohibition made drinking illegal in the States, being able to have a steady supply of booze meant having an endless stream of income. Money poured in faster than drinks could be poured out.

It was the smoothest operation Dom had ever undertaken, and it was because of his success that he was made a  _caporegime_  - a territory boss - before he was thirty. No one else had ever done that. While Dom had a large role in the plan succeeding, all six of the boys played their part: Sal with the plans, the Cray brothers with the explosives, Louis and Tommy playing scout and driving the getaway car, and Connor handling his machine gun like a surgeon.

In the middle of all of it, Dom had been struck by the feeling he knew all these boys from somewhere before. Couldn't say where, but it felt like they'd been working together for years instead of just a couple months. He brushed it off at the time because there was a job to do, but the feeling stuck with him, even after the job was over and the boys all headed their their own ways.

They still got together in twos and threes from time to time, and that's how they'd all wound up dead. Sal had an office at the club where Virgil and Lazy Eye came to drink; Tommy and Louis always went to another. Connor, in a fit of what Dom could only call madness, managed to blow both clubs up within two hours of each other. It was relatively early in the evening, so neither club was all that full, but even so, a hundred people died, and now people were paranoid that it was the North Side Gang trying to spark a territory war.

It would have been easier if it was.

All seven of them started having dreams about a year and a half ago.

Bad ones, mostly, full of ugliness and death, the kind that felt so real they were more like memories. Big Virgil, he thought they were tests. Portents from God. Connor thought they were memories. He was convinced they meant something. Dom didn't believe that until he and Connor had the same dream on the same night, both of them gasping awake in the bed they'd shared for going on two years. Down to the details, it was the same.

But unlike Connor, Dom hadn't been interested in trying to piece together what it meant. He was busy overseeing his rackets and making sure the booze kept flowing, ironing out problems, angling himself to become Al Capone's Underboss someday soon. He'd had dinner with the Big Boss on four separate occasions in a year, and got the impression Capone liked him. Had every reason to: Dom's was one of the biggest territories in Chicago, and it had few problems. Dom didn't tolerate any of it.

He was a man going places, and didn't have time to worry about some strange dreams.

None of the others really seemed that interested, either. Sal was busy counting the money and planning how to take a bigger slice of territory. The Cray brothers had gotten out of the game entirely to go open a restaurant with the money they made off the job (Virgil mostly ran it, since Lazy Eye couldn't be count on for much). Louis spent most of his time bedding ladies - and, if rumors were true, Tommy, too. Tommy, meanwhile, went into business fencing stolen goods that he mostly stole himself.

Times were good.

Connor kept insisting it meant something, and grew angrier and angrier with everyone when they insisted it didn't. No matter how many times Dom told him to let it drift, Connor refused. All Dom wanted was Connor to go back to the carefree funny hothead he was when they'd met. The one who could charm a smile out of anyone if he tried hard enough, who made Dom laugh, and watched his back.

But things got ugly instead. They started fighting all the time, Connor sometimes throwing things and punching walls and screaming that nobody was listening to him. That they were all wrong and that they were missing something important. Couldn't let it go. He was stuck on it. While he never raised a hand to Dom himself, Dom felt uneasy about it just the same, and eventually had to tell Connor not to come over anymore - not to the house or to the office or anywhere else.

After that, Connor just disappeared.

Something told Dom to go look for him, to reel him in, that it was a mistake to let him spin away like this, but things got busy in the territory. Dom had clubs and rackets to look after, people depending on him. There were dinners with the Underboss and Capone. There was some noise that Northsiders were planning to make a play for one of Dom's clubs.

A man on his way up like him didn't have a whole lot of time to worry about anything else.

That nagging sense that he ought to try to find his boy and bring him home never left, but he never did anything about it.

Worse, the dreams never stopped.

At least once a month, Dom dreamed about other times, other places. Sometimes it was just a fragment, a glimpse of a place he'd never been, or sounds from a distance. A feeling of falling. And on the odd occasion he spent any time with any of the others, he noticed they all seemed preoccupied, distant, like something was chewing their insides. Dom knew the feeling.

They still refused to talk about it, all of them doggedly holding onto the lives they'd carved for themselves.

Life went on.

Northsiders tried to chisel in on Dom's territory for real, and he lost one of his clubs. Two of his most-trusted men tried to bump him off right after that. He saw it coming in the nervous looks they exchanged in the car, and managed to avoid disaster, but it was close. Police he'd bought and paid for suddenly decided they wanted to take a closer look at his operation.

The Underboss suddenly stopped taking Dom's calls two weeks ago.

And now this.

Connor had showed back up out of the blue two nights ago, wandering into one of the clubs raving at Sal and Virgil and Lazy Eye. Completely out of his mind, Sal said, just yelling about how they're going to keep doing this again and again and again because they're wrong, they're so wrong, they never get it right. And angry. Connor thrown bottles right over people's heads and had attacked Sal for no good reason, almost strangling him to death before Virgil managed to break it up.

In the chaos, Connor bit Virgil's arm and managed to escape.

One night later, two clubs went up just when Dom's looking his shakiest.

Even so, what he feels when he looks down at his boy lying on this cracked warehouse floor isn't really anger. Not really. It's mostly pity, and a deep sense that this is probably his own fault. It could have been avoided.

Tears leak out of the corner of Connor's eyes. "D-Dom?"

"Right here," Dom says, flipping the handkerchief to try to clean up a little more.

"Th-they didn't..." Connor coughs with an ugly wet grinding sound that makes Dom wince. He'd given Dom's men a hell of a fight, but one skinny guy wasn't a match for six, not in his condition. " _Listen_. We're w-wrong. Bad. We're. Always. Bad. We...need. Better. Need to b-better. Than this."

"Than what?" Dom asks.

" _This_." Connor's face contorts with pain. "I t-tried to. L-Let it go. But it. My head... 'S all I could think. The d-dreams. They're...they  _m-matter_. We just. We never g-get it right. 'S a puzzle 'n we won't try to put it together. 'Cuz. I dunno. I d-dunno why we c-can't figure this out. E-even when we try w-we get in our own way. 'S what my dreams said. We..." More tears slip down the sides of his face. "I wanna go home, Dom. I just wanna go home."

A lump forms in Dom's throat as a wave of homesickness the likes of which he's never felt before wash over him. "Me too," he hears himself say. "Me too, Connor. Me too."

Bright, dying eyes find his. "'M sorry 'bout you clubs. 'M sorry. I just wanted 'em to listen. 'M sorry. They...they wouldn't l-listen. I just wanna go home. That's all. I just wanna go home. But I-I can't. We're...we're never...not if we don't... 'M sorry. I love you. 'M sorry."

By way of reply, Dom bends down and kisses the clean spot on Connor's forehead.

 _Me too_.

 _God, me too_.

Then he frees his gun from his pocket, and does what he came here to.

When it's over and Anger lies still and quiet, Pride kisses his forehead again, and wipes away as much of the blood as he can. He expected to feel relieved that this was over and he'd put down a poor rabid dog, but when he stands up, he doesn't feel anything at all. It's like someone opened him up and scooped out everything inside, and drained the color from the world while they were at it.

He knows now: they  _had_  gotten it wrong.

This when, they'd gotten it all wrong again.

Stepping outside, Pride raises his head and looks at his men.

He can't even say he's surprised to find them aiming their guns at him, not now. Not when he had two clubs blow up and the Underboss stopped talking to him two weeks ago.

"Next when, then," he mutters, and closes his eyes.

 _I just wanna go home_.

It's a relief when he hears the gunshots.

* * *

In this when, Roman shoots awake, gasping, the sound of machine gun fire in his ears.

 _I just wanna go home_.

"Shit," he mutters. "Oh, shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully it was clear that Roman was Dom and Dean was Connor there. If not, let me know. Also, like I said, this will get less confusing soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_'Cause I'm no prophet or messiah_  
_You should go looking somewhere higher_  
_I'm only human after all,_  
_I'm only human after all_  
_Don't put the blame on me_  
-Rag'n'Bone Man, "Human"

 _Death in itself is nothing; but we fear_  
_To be we know not what, we know not where.  
_ -John Dryden,  _Aureng-Zebe_  (Act IV, scene i)

* * *

 Promo class day again the next day.

It's is the day after a taping because it's a good time to review what everybody did the night before while it's still fresh. Good way to correct bad habits.

Roman's not thinking about that on his way down ringside, though, because he's right where he doesn't want to be: distracted away from wrestling. Focused not on thinking about what he'll say when he's dragged into the ring to give a promo later, but instead on finding Ambrose.

Who's not there.

Neither is Rollins, for that matter, and Roman finds that worrying: both of them are usually here before he is.

He gets his answer to where Rollins is before he can give into the temptation to go look: William Regal makes his way ringside, followed by Dusty and a smug Rollins.

God, Roman hates that look. He just wants to punch it off the kid's face.

Rollins saunters off to his seat as Dusty and Regal take seats on the ring apron, ready to get class underway. Roman doesn't have much choice but to grab a chair in the back row.

Ambrose never shows.

After a class in which Roman sits there not hearing a word anybody says, he heads to the locker room to change for his workout. There's nobody in here: promo class is the only mandatory thing because there's usually a house show in the evening they all have to drive to.

Not today, though. No show. That means a free day for everyone, and nobody stuck around after class.

Except him.

Coaches won't leave until early afternoon, so he'll be able to get some good work in.

He's not the only one who stayed: he's mostly dressed by the time Rollins rolls in, still looking like he won a damn lottery. Rollins has his duffle bag with him, and heads right over to start changing, not saying a word to Roman. Just stands there at his locker grinning to himself while he changes.

 _Don't ask,_  Roman tells himself, and he almost manages not to. Almost. He would've made it Rollins hadn't laughed.

"What's so funny over there?" Roman gruffs at him.

"Oh, just - it's a good day, is all," Rollins says, tugging a tank top over his head. "It's summer. The sun's shining. No house show tonight. Ambrose got sent home until next week. You know. The usual."

Roman swivels around to glare. "Why did he get sent home?"

"He was mouthing off to Dusty and Dusty told him not to come back until the match next week." Rollins pulls his medal out of his bag and polishes it on his shirt. "Isn't that great?"

"Not exactly," Roman says. "I needed to talk to him."

Rollins scoffs. "What the hell could you possibly have to talk to that asshole about?"

"A dream I had last night," Roman says, quiet and pointed. He looks around to make sure nobody's close enough to hear them. They're alone, as far as he can tell. "Another one of those dreams."

"So? I had one, too," Rollins says. "They're just dreams.."

"No, they're not," Roman says. "They mean something. We gotta figure out what it is. What was your dream?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Rollins sits down to tie his boots. "It was completely fucked and I ended up dead in a really fucked way. I don't want anything to do with any of this shit. That's all you need to know."

"Tell me anyway." Roman looms over Rollins, as hard and menacing as he can be. "I want to know."

"You threw me off a cliff and left me there to die," Rollins bites out.

"What did you do?"

"Why do you assume I did anything?"

"What did you do?" Roman demands again.

"I pushed your little butt buddy off first." A sullen teenager admitting guilt to a parent. "We were all gonna rob a treasury somewhere. Except Ambrose was so erratic. Always starting fights and causing problems. Like he actually does. You wouldn't do anything about it because you were 'close.'" The way Rollins' lip curls around the word 'close' leaves no doubt what he meant. "So I did. There was a lot of money riding on the job and I wasn't going to let him get in the way of that. I wanted that money.

"Only I didn't know you were there," he goes on, resting his forearms on his thighs. "You saw what I did, and - wow, you were pissed. Worst part was, Ambrose wasn't even dead. Fucker was too stubborn to die. So we went down there to see how bad he was. He was bad. You put a bullet in his head so he wouldn't suffer. Then you made me carry him up and bury him. After I did that, you took my guns and threw me off the cliff. I didn't die, either. Broke both my legs and probably my back. I survived a whole day down there. I dreamed about that whole entire day. I woke up hurting."

"Shit, man," Roman says, taken aback despite himself.

"Yeah," Rollins says, rising. "You can maybe see why I don't want anything to do with this shit. I keep getting dead in gruesome ways. How did I die in your dream?"

"Blown up."

"By...?"

"Ambrose."

Rollins sneers. "See? There you go. Why?"

"We wouldn't listen to him about the dreams," Roman admits. "We all had them. They mean something. We ignore them. I guess it drove him crazy. He blew all you guys up, and then I put a bullet in his head. After that, I walked out the door and I got killed. When was your dream?"

"After my other dream, but other than that, I don't know. We were in Europe somewhere. I don't know anything else and I don't care. This is all fucked. I don't want any part of it."

"We can't ignore it, though," Roman tells him. "What Connor - Ambrose - told me before he died was he wanted to go home, and I think I know exactly what he means."

Rollins had been about to walk away, but he stops all at once like he'd run into a brick wall. Breathes out hard. "Home."

"Yeah," Roman says, and that homesickness sweeps over him again, an ache for a someplace he can feel in his bones. "That ringing any bells?"

He knows it is, and that's what makes it so infuriating when Rollins says, "No."

Roman gets all up in Rollins' face. "I don't believe that."

"I don't care," Rollins says, but he looks shaken up. "What I care about is this." He holds up his fist, and the medal held fast inside it. "I care about getting to the main roster. I care about getting a  _WrestleMania_  main event. That's all any of us should care about. Not this fucked bullshit. I don't want any part of it."

"You think I do?" Roman shoots back. "I'm a thoroughbred racing mutts right now. I got a spot on the main roster with my name on it, and I'm taking it - dreams or no. That doesn't mean I'm gonna turn a blind eye to them. There's something to this home thing. I want to know what it is. Judging by the look on your face, you do, too. Husky said it last night, man: we're all here. No reason we can't have it both ways."

"I just don't want to do anything that's gonna end up with me dead." Rollins shakes his head. "Seems to happen in every one of these stupid when things. Why couldn't we have have dreams where we won the lottery and lived happily ever after? And what's the deal with you and Ambrose, anyway?"

"What do you mean?" Wary.

"Are you fucking?"

"Man, why would you even ask that?"

"You were fucking in both my dreams," Rollins shrugs. "I see how you guys look at each other now. If you're not fucking yet, you will be. Which is probably gonna get me killed again. Do yourself a favor and don't stick your dick in that crazy. Don't do it. Walk away from it. Keep your eyes on the prize. You got something, big man. The brass knows it. You're going places. You got a spot on the main roster with your name on it, and you know it. Don't let yourself get dragged into any of this bullshit. I'm not."

Roman ignores the confused part of himself that wants to ask how he looks at Ambrose. It's irrelevant. Probably just Rollins trying to get to him. "You're gonna ignore that feeling, huh? You know the one I'm talking about. The one that just settled into your bones. You want to go home so bad it hurts. You're just gonna ignore it?"

There's a war in the dark of Rollins' eyes right then and there, and suddenly he's not the sneering, smug prick anymore. He's back on his heels, struggling to grasp something that for even Roman is like trying to grab smoke. It's a  _feeling_  - no sense of  _when_  or  _how to get there_.

It just  _is_.

 _I wanna go home_.

Except denial apparently runs deeper in Rollins than it does Roman, because Rollins shoves his way around Roman and mutters, "I don't have time for this shit. Stay away from me. Stay away from Ambrose, too. None of this shit matters."

"Keep lying to yourself," Roman calls after him.

He's not surprised there's no answer.

* * *

It's weird how quiet the week is.

Roman doesn't want to admit he's feeling the pull of feeling someone missing at his side, so he doesn't.

Trouble is, he's not scheduled for TV next week, and there aren't any house shows to work until next weekend. Days are busy enough with in-training and weights. He comes in early and stays late every day, working himself to the point of exhaustion just so he can go home and pass out. Not think about anything.

There are no more dreams, either, and he's less glad about that than he might have expected: maybe one of the dreams has the answer to why he's got this homesickness.

What it is.

How to get home.

Most of the time, that feeling is there, but tuned down low, somewhere it's easy to ignore, like a TV turned on but with quiet volume.

Other times, even in the middle of an intense workout, it sweeps into him so hard he can't breathe.

 _I wanna go home_.

The others, they avoid him.

It's deliberate, too, because he spots Bo and Husky across the ring and starts over to talk to them about this latest plot twist, but they scatter like a couple of cockroaches the second they see him coming. Mike and Johnny are careful to work out in other training rings.

And Rollins, he's so locked in on preparing for his match - and protecting his medal - that he doesn't see anything else. He's got an advantage, too, and he knows it: a week out of the ring doesn't sound like much, but when your opponent has spent their entire week honing their moves to razor sharpness, it is.

Every so often, Roman catches Rollins eyeing that FCW 15 medal of his like it's a lifesaver, and has to restrain himself from going over to explain it's not about the damn medal for Ambrose. Roman barely knows Ambrose, but he knows that. The medal's just the icing on the cake, as far as Ambrose is concerned, a way to dig into Rollins' ego and needle him.

Rollins probably won't believe it, though; that's why Roman doesn't bother.

He doesn't give a damn about Rollins' scrap bone.

Some ugly part of him hopes Ambrose really makes it hurt next match.

(" _Don't stick your dick in all that crazy_.")

"Like I would," he mutters at his empty apartment.

It remains silent.

* * *

Greed and Anger's second collision isn't the main event that night, not with Leo Kruger challenging Bo - Sloth - for a shot at the FCW Heavyweight Title - the  _actual_  top title in the promotion.

But it should be.

It feels like it is.

Twenty-minute time limit - that's gonna be the longest match of the night.

The whole crew gathers around the monitor backstage to watch this like eager kids crowding around the television to watch a  _WrestleMania_  main event. Roman sits off to one side of them, well away from Husky or Mike and Johnny, who don't seem all that keen to be around him anyway.

Roman had staked out the door to try to catch Ambrose before the show, but Dusty had snagged Ambrose the second Ambrose stepped foot in the building. From the one glimpse Roma caught of the guy, it was clear Ambrose was fuming.

And that's the look in his eyes when he makes it out to the ring: no acknowledgment to the crowd, no spinning circles, nothing. Just Ambrose walking straight out into the ring and staring at the curtain like a shark about to feast on a whole school of fish. He looks like somebody on a mission to inflict damage.

Down deep, way dpwn, Roman feels a twist of uneasiness.

Except:

Where the first match between Greed and Anger was like a game of chess in the way each guy made a move that the other countered, the second match starts out as a fight and never really lets up. Greed, his face contorted with rage, rushes the ring and gives Anger an ass-whooping he probably has coming for what he did with the medal -  _My preciousssss_  - last week. It's a display of viciousness right out Anger's playbook, mindless and unrelenting, fists and feet hailing down at Anger, who can do nothing but reel around the ring, punching at the air.

He looks drunk.

After Greed gets Anger back in the ring, kid rips off his medal, holds it up and screams in his raspy old lady's voice, " _It's my medal, Ambrose! Mine! You think you can take it? Huh?_ "

Roman leans forward in his seat and thinks,  _Get your butt in gear, Ambrose. Shake off the rust. Show me what you got_.

He no sooner has that thought than Ambrose fights to his feet, punch-drunk, but still in it.

Rollins' rage mirrored in the furnace of Ambrose's eyes.

There's a change in the air; half the locker room sits up and sucks in a breath, like  _Oh, man, shit's about to go down_.

It does.

Ambrose gets himself in the game by drop-kicking Rollins off the apron into the metal rail. Rollins' head bounces off the top of it like a basketball. Everyone in the locker room winces.

In the ring, Ambrose looks downright feral, but Roman swears he sees a hint of a smile there.

He might smile himself.

That's more like it.

Rollins puts up a fight - instinct and reflex and the desperate desire not to lose - but Ambrose gets him clamped into a vicious rear chin lock, and then some other hold where he bends Rollins in half the wrong way, torquing Rollins' back in a way it's not meant to go. Ambrose's eyes are alight with spiteful glee when he does, because Rollins can't do anything but clutch and claw and flap useless hands while Ambrose torques and torques.

Roman can hear Regal stuttering and stammering his way through the commentary. The old man sounds like he's trying to talk through a massive hard-on. He's got a thing for mat wrestling and the types of holds Ambrose puts Rollins in. It shouldn't be funny, but in a way it is

The time ticks away, though, and Rollins doesn't tap.

Tough kid, Roman has to admit.

Mutts usually are.

That's the one thing Roman can say for them: mutts can take a beating and still keep coming.

It makes them good for practice.

And Rollins, he fights out and fights on, only to get his knee destroyed when he hung up in the ropes and drop kicked right square on it. It's one of the hardest kicks Roman's seen Ambrose do. Rollins collapses to the mat, clutching his knee. Ambrose gets up and throws Rollins into a nasty figure-four, wrenching on that knee as much as he possibly can like he's trying to snap Rollins' leg. Rollins howls in pain and it's a sound part of Roman really likes. Ambrose's eyes are wild with savage joy, and that same part of Roman likes that, too.

"You think I care about your stupid medal?" the camera catches Ambrose asking Rollins. "I just want you to  _hurt_ , Cupcake." And he wrenches hard on the figure-four, bridging himself upward to apply that much more pressure. Rollins is a picture of agony.

But he hangs on. Fights out. Keeps going.

The clock keeps ticking down, and the mutts start to scrap in earnest.

Rollins survives Ambrose's finisher, and somehow, in a desperate moment, manages to clock Ambrose with his own finisher - a nearly-decapitating kick to the head.

Lights out for Ambrose, except he's smart enough to roll out of the ring so he doesn't get pinned.

And then Rollins gets greedy.

Instead of letting Ambrose get counted out - he probably would have; the camera zooms in on his face, and he's in full-blown lights-on-nobody-home mode - Rollins rolls Ambrose back into the ring and goes for a cover. Ambrose gets his foot on the rope. A second cover. Ambrose grabs the rope with a hand. A third center-ring. Ambrose kicks out.

Rollins looks like he wants to tear his hair out.

Roman smiles again.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

And these mutts, Greed and Anger, they scrap it out for the last five minutes in that sweltering arena, back-and-forth, rage-fuelled and throwing everything they've got at each other, back to that rhythm of move-and-counter, neither one better than the other.

Half the locker room is on its feet, but once again, nobody's pulling for anyone in particular.

It ends with the two of them knocking each other off of the announcers' desk, tied zero-zero.

Greed can't even make it back into the ring to collect his medal. The ref has to bring it to him.

Somebody in the locker room says, "Shit, they're gonna have to have another match."

Roman doesn't know why that sours his mood so much, but it does.

* * *

Post-match.

While everyone else sticks around to watch Bo and Leo duke it out, Roman leaves the locker room and heads off to wait in the little area right behind the curtain, perching on the little table where Ambrose had dumped his jacket.

Rollins limps through first, an out-of-breath, sweat-soaked mess, hair flying every which-way and exhaustion in the lines of his face. When he sees Roman, he glares. "What do you want?"

"Not waiting for you," Roman tells him. "You beat yourself out there tonight, man. You would've had a countout if you'd just left him on the floor."

"I didn't want a damn countout," Rollins says, swiping a hand over his face. "I wanted to pin him. I wanted to prove my point."

"What point?" Roman asks. "You really think it's about the medal?"

It looks like Rollins' knuckles are going to split around that thing. Roman wonders, a little meanly, if Rollins actually takes it to bed. "What is it, then? Enlighten me."

"When you want to walk into a place like this and make your mark, what do you do? You walk up to the biggest dog in the yard and punch them in the mouth. See if they flinch or they fight. Say this for you, man," he adds, because he's feeling generous, "you got some fight in you. You didn't just roll over."

Movement out of the corner of his eye draws his attention over to Ambrose, who'd just flipped his way through the curtain, and jerked to a stop on seeing Roman and Rollins there.

Ambrose's gaze flicks back and forth between Roman and Rollins, narrows, hardens.

This weird silence falls, even in the arena, just this complete absence of sound.

 _Oh shit,_  Roman thinks, tensing.

Sure enough: Ambrose flies at Rollins like a runaway train. They crash together and tumble to the ground, and Ambrose scrambles to straddle Rollins' chest, flailing fists and snarling, " _Fucker! You motherfucker! I'm gonna fucking kill you!"_

"Get him off me!" Rollins shrieks from beneath the arms he's using to shield his face.

Roman's on Ambrose in a flash, shoving him aside so hard Ambrose goes sprawling to the concrete, hands slapping out to catch himself. He lands on his ass and turns big, stunned eyes on Roman.

Furious ones.

"Don't even think about it, Ambrose," Roman warns him, because he can see Ambrose gathering himself to attack again. "Rollins, get out of here."

"Keep that crazy fucker away from me," Rollins says, picking his sweaty carcass off the floor. "Jesus Christ, Ambrose. That's it. That's  _it_. I'm telling Dusty."

"Don't you dare," Roman growls at him. Rollins freezes. "What you're gonna do is go hit the showers, get dressed, and go home. What you are not gonna do is go tattle like a little bitch. You're fine. No harm done. Just go home, Rollins. He'll stay away from you."

Of course Rollins doesn't just leave. He's defaulted back smug again - complete with a twist of a sneer and narrowed eyes - when he holds out the medal in one sweaty hand and says, "You say people like Briscoe are turning over in their grave because I've got this? You're the one who isn't worth it. You ain't worth  _shit_ , Ambrose, and you never will be."

Ambrose twitches to his feet so fast it's actually startling, teeth bared.

Roman barely has time to step between them. "Get out of here, Rollins!"

"Yeah, limp away and go lick your wounds, you little bitch!" Ambrose yells. "You still didn't beat me. Have fun sleepin' tonight knowing that. Fucker."

Spinning on his heel, Roman gets right up in Ambrose's red, damp face. "Calm the hell down. You want to get yourself sent home again?"

"Fuck you," Ambrose sneers, and shoves past Roman to grab his jacket off the table. "Why don't you run along and go play with your new best friend there."

And while Roman's standing there trying to figure out what the hell that means, Ambrose slaps his way through the side exit. Roman curses under his breath and hurries to follow, frustrated to the point he wants to just hit something.

Ambrose stalks around the corner of the building and into the alley, where the dark swallows him up. Roman walks on the other side, in the little aisle of light from the building across the way and the few weak street lamps.

When Ambrose reaches one of the dumpsters, he kicks it and kicks it and kicks it. The flat metallic bang of each one boils and echoes down the humid canyon. " _FUCK!_ "

This time, Roman just leans back against rough brick and waits for Ambrose to burn himself out.

He knows steam-letting when he sees it.

Better a dumpster than Rollins' face.

It takes longer than he might have expected; Ambrose has built up a good head of steam, apparently, and it's several minutes before the kicks and cursing slow down.

When it finally does, when all Roman can hear is harsh pants from the shadows over there, he moves away from the wall. "You all right?"

"Fuck do you care?" A lighter snaps alight and finds its way to the tip of a cigarette. "Why aren't you inside playing checkers with your new best friend?"

"What in the hell are you even talking about, man?"

"You and Rollins. That lying fuck."

"He ain't my friend, for one," Roman answers, calm and steady, "but even if he was, that's none of your business, Ambrose. The company I keep is nobody's business but mine. What did he lie about?"

"Last week he told Dusty I jumped him in the parking lot after the match," Ambrose bites out. The heated orange glow in the dark is the only real clue Roman has to where he is. "That was the night we talked to everybody. He was gone before I left. I didn't touch him. I got so pissed about him lying that I took a swipe at him right there in Dusty's office. Got sent home for it. And I'm supposed to be the bad guy here?"

(" _I pushed him off the cliff first._ ")

(" _I'll fucking kill you!"_ )

No wonder. Roman wishes he'd punched all the smug off Rollins' face that day in the locker room. "I get you," he says. "He trying to get out of the rematch, or what?"

"I think so," Ambrose says through a smoky exhale. "Anything to protect that stupid piece of ribbon and tin. You shoulda let me kick his ass."

"If I'd known what he did, I might have helped," Roman admits. "All he told me was you lipped off to Dusty and got sent home. He lied to me, too." He makes a mental note to have words with Rollins about it later. Later. "That's pretty bullshit."

"Well, I'm gonna get another crack at him, I know that," Ambrose says, finally emerging from beside the dumpster. He crosses the alley and stands against the wall a little ways down from Roman, jacket folded over one arm and his smoke dangling from his mouth. "He try to buddy up to you while I was gone or what?"

"No. The day you got sent home, we were the only ones that stuck around. Tried talking to him about this dream I had the night before, and even though he had one of his own, he wouldn't hear it."

"Huh. Not surprised." Ambrose takes a final drag on the cigarette and pitches it to the ground, snuffing it under his boot. "He's not ready yet. I don't think any of them are. Think maybe Husky was onto something. Like, Bo and Rollins, they're  _there_ , but they're not ready. Husky, Mike, and Johnny aren't there or ready. I am. You are, too. I can tell."

"Ready for what?" Roman asks.

"Find home," Ambrose tells him. "Figure out where it is and how we get there, and - what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

 _Home_.  That aching sweep again.  Roman breaths out sweltering air, feeling like he's just run a marathon.  "You know about that.  Home.  Dream?"

"Yeah, the night we all met in the locker room.  I dreamed about us in Chicago.  My name was Connor."

He pauses there, looking at Roman, who doesn't even know why it's a surprise at this point. "And my name was Dominic. I put you down."

"I don't blame you." Ambrose doesn't sound surprised, either. "I was fucked up seven ways to Christmas on amphetamines. Hadn't slept in days. Hallucinating. I just wanted it over. Try again in another when. Try to get home. Couldn't bring myself to kill you, though. How did you die?"

"Got shot as soon as I walked out of that warehouse. I was glad."

"I bet."

"You're gonna say 'I told you so,' aren't you?"

"Nope." Ambrose slumps back against the wall. He looks tired now, all that anger finally burned away. "I get it. We all got shit we wanna do. Even me. You know? I'm just like everybody else here: I wanna main event  _WrestleMania_. I want to get there and put my stamp on that place. I don't want these dreams or the rest of it any more than you guys do. But it's there. And I don't know what to do about it. I don't know where home is or how to find it. I just know that I want to. I know we're gonna need all of us to do it. But if they're not ready, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Wait? What if some of us get called up and the rest don't? Then what?"

"You're asking the guy, Ambrose," Roman says. "You know more about this than I do. I don't know what to do about it. I'd like to know, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my career. I get the impression that's where Rollins is, too. We want to know, but we don't want to have to put aside our lives for it."

"'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End,'" Ambrose says.

"You think you're Jesus now?" Roman asks dryly.

"Fuck no," Ambrose chuckles. "Just had a revelation, is all."

Roman snorts. "Funny."

"Bible puns," Ambrose says, agreeable. He cards the wet mop of his hair off his face. "Get ya every time. No, I was just - Mike's deal. The image he saw. I was thinking about it, and I think I know why that seems like such a bad place to us: that where it started. Whatever this. That's the beginning. Home is the end. The  _end_  end. First and last. We get home, it's all over. And I mean, I get it. Wanting to make it in the WWE and have an amazing career, yeah, that's something to aspire to, but seems like small potatoes compared to finally getting home. We've been gone for a long time. And we haven't fucked anything up yet. I don't think it's even started-"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Roman says over him. "You hear yourself when you were trying to break Rollins' face just now?"

"No."

"You said 'I'll fucking kill you.'"

Ambrose folds his arms over his stomach like he's trying to protect himself. "I didn't mean it. I just - I get so fucking mad sometimes it's hard to think straight. I don't know what I'm saying."

"That's a problem," Roman tells him. "You gotta keep your head, man. You can't afford to blow your stack like that. You're mad at Rollins, and you have a right to be, but save it for the ring. If he pulls a stunt like that with Dusty again, you come find me and I'll deal with him."

"I don't need you to fight my battles for me, Golden Boy."

"If I hadn't stopped you tonight, what would've happened?"

It's not surprising that Ambrose looks away.

"I'm not gonna fight your battles for you," Roman says then, "because you're right: you don't need that, and I got enough on my plate as it is. But keeping you from doing something stupid, that I will do."

"Why?" Wary.

"We need all of us if we're gonna figure this out, right?" Roman says. "You're the one who knows what's going on-"

"I don't know shit. I just have a lot of guesses and ideas."

"Which is more than anyone else has right now."

"Are you actually gonna listen?"

"As much as I can, yeah," Roman says, "but I still want to wrestle. I don't want this getting in the way of that. I've worked too damn hard to get here to stop now. I got roster spot with my name on it. I want it."

Ambrose flings himself away from the wall. "Getting home is more important than any  _WrestleMania_  main event, Golden Boy. It's probably the most important thing we'll ever do. I know you know that. You may have to choose. Then what are you gonna do?"

"Cross that bridge when I get there, I guess."

"Sure." Ambrose hooks his jacket around his shoulders and turns for the door. "Guess I'm gonna go cleaned up and get outta here. But - hey." He stops. "Actually, you know what? Lemme buy you a beer. As a, y'know. Thanks. For not letting me do anything stupid tonight. You can tell me about Rollins' dream."

"Just one," Roman says, moving away form the wall himself. "We got class in the morning and the show tomorrow night. I don't want to be hungover."

"You must be a lightweight if one beer gets you drunk."

"I can probably drink you under the table." Roman takes a deliberate look at Ambrose's lean midsection. "You're so skinny I can probably fit both hands around that little waist of yours. If anybody here's a lightweight, it's you."

"I'll have you know," Ambrose says, "that I've been drinking professionally since I was sixteen. I've built up a tolerance. You would be on the floor before I'm even tipsy."

"We'll see about that," Roman says. "Just not tonight."

Over one shoulder, Ambrose throws Roman a smile. It's a good one, dimpled and bright and nowhere near as sharp as it usually is. "I'll hold you to that."

Roman smiles back. "I'm sure you will."

_You pain in the ass._

It feels like something slips into place when he does, a needle finding its groove.

( _"Don't stick your dick in all that crazy._ ")

It feels like a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."  
> -Revelation 22:13
> 
> Also, yes, Rollins is a bit of a dick right now in the story. However, he's not the bad guy. He's just living out his sin. We'll see him grow up a little bit along the way. Hang in there.


End file.
